Dust Raven

I think I have the Control Plant powers okay... Control Plants: TK 34 STR 51 Active; OIF (plants, -1/2), STR Dependant On Structure Of Plants (-1/2), Targets Must Be Within Reach Of Plants (-1/4) 23 Real. Animate Plants: Summon 1 175 point creature; Loyal (+1/2), Very LImited Group (+1/4) 61 Active; Being Must Inhabit Locale (-1/2), OIF (plants, -1/2) 31 Real There is also a Minor Transform that can reshape/grow plants.

If all you are doing is Stunning the target, you could always do this: Stunner: Suppress STUN 10d6 (standarf effect: 30) 50 Actie; Instant (-1/2) 33 Real. It doesn't cause any real loss of STUN, but if the target has a CON of 29 or less, they will be Stunned. If they 29 or less actuall STUN, they will even momentarily black out, but will still have their full STUN an instant later. All of this assumes they don't have any Power Defense. This type of attack is best when Linked to a damaging attack, such as an NND or AVLD.

Since Disabling and Impairing is a side effect of losing BODY, I'd say removing those effects is a side effect of Healing BODY. If you want to say that Healing along can't do that (because of the chance for Disabling effects to last longer or be permanent), I'd say use the Can Regrow Limbs Adder. If you can regrow a limb, you can certainly regain the use of a disabled one.

I'm kinda waving my Superhero Wand about plant senses. Basically, they got partial discriminatory spatial awareness and photosensitivity. They can also hear, but don't understand the speach of animals, including humans (Plant Girl is the exception of course...), nor would it have the perfect memory to repeat the syllables. They don't understand sounds in the same way as people either, but can explain things like "a rumbling from the sky" (possibly a jet) or "a rumbling fromthe baren wasteland beyond the grass" (car on the road?). Right now, it's looking like this: Talk to Plants: Clairsentience with Unique Senses, Retrocognition; 0 END (+1/2) (60 active); OIF (nearby plants, -1/2), Time Modifiers (-1/2), Limited Conscious Control (-1) Real Cost: 20 points Basically, Plant Girl doesn't actually see or hear or in any say sense what the Clairsentience is supposed to let her; it's being described verbally by things that aren't used to describing their surroundings. The Limited Conscious Control represents that plants can talk to her whenever, even if she doesn't want them to, and that what they describe isn't always what she's looking for or is described in a way she doesn't understand.

Okay...after digging out the character sheet, this is what she's currently got: Talk With Plants: Clairsentience with Hearing Group, Retrocognition, 1/2 END, Retro Only. (50 Active, 25 Real) Should it be Hearing Group or Sight...or both? I'm thinking it shouldn't have Retro Only because a plant should just as easily talk about stuff going on presently as well.

Clairsentience/Retro it is then. It happens to be how we have it written up, though not exactly as suggested. Now Plant Girl wants to be able to command plants, forcing them to do stuff for her. Following the same line...this has gotta be TK with plants being an OIF.

Okay, not really. But I have a player who's character can talk to plants, and I need to know how to simulate that. It seems it should cost a bit more than 2 points (Language: Plants). Basically, here's how we worked out how it works. All plants, though not truly sentient, have a spirit that is aware of their surroundings and is able to communicate with the spirits of other plants and even some animals. The plants don't really ponder anything, or think idley, or even "think" in any way that we conceive of the term. They are just aware and can communicate. This character, we'll call her Plant Girl, is able to communicate with these plant-spirits. Doing this, she can ask the plants about things that happened in the area, or even network with an entire forest to find somone. She cna ask favors, like have a plant wake her from a nap if someone approaches, or to pass on other information to other plants or other characters with her ability. Note: Plants cannot lie. They don't know the concept of deception. However, they also have no comprehension of things like human speach and manerisms. Also, even though a plant cannot lie, it can make a mistake. So how would I write this up?

There is really no difference from an OAF on a normally visible Power and an OAF on a normally invisible Power with Visible. Visible only gets tricky when the Mental Powers is used. As a default, the target of a Mental Power isn't aware he's being affected by it until it wares off. He'll see the visible effect, be affected by the Power, but only be aware of the visible effect (maybe he thinks it failed). If you want to grant a target a bonus to break out of the effects if it's really obvious that something strange is going on, go ahead. It is a LImitation afterall. Specifically...The blue energy stream would connect the attack with the target, not the illusion, and only the target will perceive the illusion. A glowing green line would indeed connect everybody in the Link. An EB is visible, and can be put in a Focus. The only thing is that it becomes obvious that the Power comes from the item, not the character. Visible just makes sure everybody can see it, otherwise only characters with Mental Awareness would be able to see the Power to know it's from the Focus.

From your first post, it seems that you are planing this for an NPC that the PCs must defeat, somehow freeing all of the zombies. If this is correct, simply define the game mechanic of infection (Xd6 Mind Control/Transform/Other Appropriate Power), a cure, and then just describe the method of contagion. Don't break your brain trying to figure out how many points something is or how to build it unless a PC is buying it. So long as something like this is being used by an NPC, its a really cool plot device and nothing more.

Ultimately, here's my fix to adding a smaller Power to an EC: Buy the EC with all the larger Powers normally, then buy the smaller Powers and apply the Limitations Linked (-1/2) and Is Affected By Adjustment Powers That Affect The EC (-1/2). It's simpler, easier to explain, doesn't change the rules and, most importantly, it works.

The triple cost still applies to Adjustment Powers? Damn...

I'm confused about this as well. So far, I've simply decided to base the LImitations on how the Power works when used. Granted, a sword that turns into a ring when not in use should cost more than a sword that goes into a scabard when not is use, but I haven't found a consistent way to account for this in game terms.

Re: Re: re: the small slot The idea behind an Elemental Control isn't to get Powers at discount prices. It's to simulate a single power/ability that can be best expressed as several Powers in game mechanics. In this way, when the Energy Blast part of the power gets Drained, the other parts get Drained by default because it's all the same ability. Also, you can consider it to be the limiting factor contributing to the recudtion of cost of the Powers. I also ignore the END restructions, and allow things like Armor into ECs, but I do keep a careful watch to make sure that the Powers in an EC are effectively the same power.

Herolover. Your idea of allowing players to choose if their character's are Superheroic or Heroic is one of my first ideas when converting Rifts to Hero. If your players are 100% role-players, and don't pay attention to their points anyway, this is a great idea. If not, you'll end up with a Heroic Campaign so everybody can use the free equipment. What I eventually came up with was simply deciding that the campaigh was Heroic. Characters could be built as if they are Superheroic (meaning they can buy powers and such, and didn't have NCM), but all of their equipment was free. To aid in game balance, I required mech pilots to buy a lot of their benifits of using a mech as skills. Basically, TF: Specific Mech would let you pilot it, but you would still need to buy the extra SPD and DEX (with the OIF LImitation) to have the Mecha Combat skills. This keeps mech pilots even with 'borgs, dragons and magic users. As for the non-mech, non-powered O.C.C.s, just do as sugested above, and decide what power level you want the game to be. If it's mostly scholars and vagabonds, set the points kinda low. If it's mostly Dragons, Battle Magi and MInd Melters, the the points kinda high.

SDC & MDC While the concept is cool, you have to remember the rules for MDC were created for a system that dealt 100% damage to their targets. There were no Hero System-like defenses that subtracted from the damage. In a system that does, I would simply rate that "megadamage" is lots of damage and "megadamage capacity" is enough armor to stop most of the damage. Just make sure that the megadamage are enough to squish most things without armor (at least 18 DC or so).

I would think that, since every Attack must have a Defense, that no character can have a Defense for everything. I know that having a Defense for every Attack is not the same as being completely invulnerable, but if there is one thing that HERO has thought me... there is always a way around a defense. Of course, the GM could just fill the campaign with attacks that have IPE: Precog...

That is funny, but I'd just right it up at +X PRE, Restrainable (-1/2). It's only OAF if the whole thing goes away if th "focus" is taken or damaged.

-1/4 and -1/2 sound good. Although I might go with a -1/2 for Cannot LIft, depending on how you define lift. If you can still grab, shove, pull and push down, it's only a -1/4 at tops. As for Only Downward, assuming you can still grab and punch, -1/2, it's just that it can only be aimed down (not much a lim for the punch effect, but you never move things sideways, indluding KB).

I'm not entirely sure what the question is, but since there are a lot of replies here... There is no dividing line between "equipment" and "powers through a focus". When it comes right down to it, all equipment is, is powers through a focus (or sometimes Only In Hero ID or Restrainable). The terms are synonamous.

I would just buy the power twice, either through a Multipower, Elemental Control, or without a framework. If you just want to affect those weird anomoly things, you can always buy Variable Advantage and occasionally use it for Affects Desol (but I make my energy beings using Desol).

Actually, I wouldn't rate this as an Advantage. I've seen enough movies and tv shows where the bad guy listen in on a radio transmission, or managed to watch the hero looking into a scrying pool or something and use it against the hero. As long as this happens (or the hero takes strenuous action to prevent it), I'd let it slide.

Unless bought Always On, any Persistant Power can be turned off at will. Personally, I'd simply rule that turning Armor on or off would be enough for the appearance to change. This may only apply if her physical features only change color/texture, unless the GM rules it's a large enough change to disguise her. If not, then you will need another power to diguise her as well (such as Shapeshift). Although many GMs stretch it a bit, I generally rule that the Instant Change variant of Transform only applies to a character's clothing (just as the Power is bought). It would never change the appearance of the actual character.

I don't like the UBO Characteristics idea. It sounds cheep, but I don't think so. For the full effect, you would need to buy up the number of targets significently. Without the Range Advantage, the Characteristics will fade past physical contact, and without Persistant, they will fade upon loss of LOS. Or, you can just buy Aid/Succor and be done with it. Save the UBO stuff for those cases when Aid just doesn't do what you want it to.

I think you are right about the fish in the water thing. Another thing to keep in mind though, is that IR only has a range of about 5-15 feet underwater. The funny thing about water is that it soaks up light, starting with the infrared and working iis way down. UV would be the last to go. IMO, the only difference between IR and Thermalgraphic vision is that Thermo is bought N-Ray.

This is something that hadn't occured to me. I could buy 20 INT & a bunch of Power Defense (I could even limit the Power Defense so that it only protects INT Drains (a -2?/6 points for 18 PowDef)), or I could just buy +4 INT Levels and save some points and get the effect I really want. Yes, I'm the the category of players that believes that the Hero System is balanced and that everything works out when you add it up in the end. I'm also the kinda player that just shakes his head and says "I'm still doin' the math on that one" when I look at Ego Attack and BOECV.