Insaniac99

Re: Ben 10: Alien Force

it was a good episode, I can't wait to see why kevin doesn't absorb energy anymore. I think kevin could use the marbles, but only to get his super-strong punch/hand like he has in the past.

Re: build help: regen man

hmm... Thanks marcdoc, I'm going to write up two versions and have one with the healing, one without. i really like the idea...

as for names I'm kind of thinking something like captain eternal or something relating to Lazarus

Re: build help: regen man

You probably already know this, but on those extra 8 Phases - Only To Take Recoveries, he must abide by the usual rules for Taking a Recovery. Mainly, that no END-costing power can be used during that Phase, and no non-persistent powers can be maintained.

 

right, the only stuff he has is a set of super jump boots and his super charged zapper

Actually, "from death" and "with resurrection" is the same thing.

my mistake, I meant resurrection and can heal limbs

You might want to buy up that Stun - Only For Determining Frequency of Recoveries more than 30.

well, I'm going to try Dust raven's idea, it sounds like it might function a bit better,I plan to play test it a bit. it does seem more expensive and not quite what I want though. the only reason I didn't buy my stun higher is that this method of defense is so freaking expensive, the damage reduction, the regeneration, the speed, but I guess it is also worth it since it does what I want and is pretty effective in many circumstances

There is a rule about recoveries you might not be aware of. If the character takes *any* damage after defenses (PD, ED, etc.) while taking a recovery, he doesn't get the recovery. So a sleep drug built as a Drain Stun w/ Uncontrolled will likely deprive him of some of his Recoveries.

true, the main idea is that for a little bit at least the villains won't know about his ability and they usually don't hit a man while they're down, after all what's the sense in continuing to KO the half-dead man or firing a rocket at the guy who is already a bloody pulp while there are other heroes to worry about? plus, I want a sleep drug to work while it is maintained, once it is no longer maintained he wakes up way quicker than anyone else, in seconds instead of minutes, minutes instead of hours and so on.

Wear them down with what? I don't recall seeing a significant offensive ability in this discussion.

well I didn't need help with his super-charged zapper, I just made a multi-power, OIF, charges, beam.

so he does have damage output, at the prescribed campaign standard no less.

Mr. Weeble?

Captain Chumbawamba?

Mr. Whackamole?

Mr. Eternal?

LoL, something eternal might work though.

Re: build help: regen man

I considered using damage reduction but to me it didn't feel right for it to work against stun. I had the same problem with armor, it didn't feel right at all. I want him to go down easy, but I also want something that a single hit from the mook won't keep him out of the entire fight. I had 450 points to play with and since besides his skills all he needs is his regen and multi-power zapper what I ended up doing is this:

13 con

10 body

22 rec

22 stun (standard figured characteristic)

4 spd

+8 speed, only to take recoveries

regeneration of 7 body per turn, from death, with resurrection (can't afford 12 yet, i want him to recover a body per phase by the time he's done)

+~30 stun, only for determining frequency of recoveries

50% energy and physical damage reduction, resistant, body only (he still feels the pain even if the cut starts closing while the knife is still in him)

the end result is that a standard 14d6 with KO him, and everyone who doesn't know him will think he is down for the count but before his next phase comes up, he'll have taken two full recoveries and be at full stun and end by the time his phase comes up again. if he gets hit twice in a single phase he still will get recoveries every phase, but 3 times and he's down long enough that they can tranq him long enough for transport or finish the combat/run away

its not perfect but I think it will definitely have the feel I'm looking for, especially since we aren't taking this campaign extra seriously as it is only going to run for a little while. this also helps in that a single enemy his skill level and speed slinging standard energy blasts is not going to dent him, but he will slowly wear them down. at the end of the combat regen man (haven't come up with a good name yet) will still be at full health. the only problem i see is the body damage will quickly catch up too, but with experience I can buy either more regen or damage reduction...

now to come up with a proper super-hero name.. it might end up being Punch Clown if I can't think of anything else.

thanks for the suggestions guys! (if you got name ideas feel free to shoot them my way)

Re: build help: regen man

hmm.. I'm dead tired as I'm running on 2-3 hours of sleep right now (going to go back soon) but so far the extra stun heavily limited seems to work, extra con only for resisting being stunned also makes a bit of sense, he may have been stunned but he recovered so fast you don't notice it or he's already recovered from it by the time he has a chance to do something...

my main concern is that the ap limit for attacks is 70ap, so just a standard energy blast will put me in -30 stun right away and with a low speed most solutions I see the problem is that he (hopefully) gets off one shot at the start of the combat with his lightning reflexes and then he gets hit and KOed, possibly killed, which is fine but with his low speed as soon as his recoveries happen more people with higher speeds are ready to put him right back out of the action. maybe on top of the extra stun and recovery I should pay for +9 speed only for recoveries? then after I'm KOed or killed I'll recover before my next action comes around. at a speed of three I'm already pretty ineffective at combat, I don't want him to be a burden on my teammates so I should try get the most out of the three actions I do get to take.

must cogitate on it while I sleep. perhaps using a book as a pillow, you never know I might learn something by osmosis

I'm playing a character in a short campaign, I already have GM approval for this concept, I just need a little help getting the right 'feel' for how he works.

here is my concept: my character is a slightly trained, super-smart human, only one stat (int) is higher than 20 who likes to play games with such an obsession he has gotten some bennefit from them (+ ocv and some PSLs with his suped up zapper and some lightning reflexes so he has a chance to get a shot off) and in general he is a normal human who gets a bit of exercise (spd 3, most stats below 15). he does have his supercharged zapper with backpack battery (that provides him all of 6 charges) that can deliver some serious hurt but the idea is that he is mostly non-combat. In a combat he'll only get off a shot or two before he gets KOed by the single attack that comes his way but he'll wake up again before the combat is over

so far so good, the problem is that his only power besides being a normal human is that he heals insanely fast so it is easy to knock him out, stun him, and even kill him, but he'll be up and raring to go in mere moments. I already have a high regeneration (9 body per turn, and he has the standard 10 body so he goes from tomato paste to full health in less than 30 seconds) but this doesn't help him wake up from stunned or KOed to GM's discretion land (which is needed as he has only 22 stun and a 2pd/3ed non-resistant) aside from buying a recovery that is nearly as big as my stun (which doesn't quite get the right feel for me and doesn't help in the what would probably be common GM discretion territory) what are a couple ways to do this?

I don't want armor or damage reduction as he really is just a normal human who is insanely easy to KO or otherwise incapacitate and the only reason he is with a team of supers that that he bounces back faster than the punch clowns you had as a kid no matter what he's been through. a viper agent could feasibly stand by to KO him every few seconds because of how easily he goes down. a suitably strong and constant stream of knockout gas would also do the trick but soon as the gas feed ends he'll wake up in mere seconds

I was also thinking a heal stun that is just like the body regeneration (ignoring the regeneration is only for body rule) but I'm not sure how that would work for GM fiat land (aka comas) and being con stunned

neither the stun regeneration nor the huge recovery seem to quite fit the bill, does anyone have any suggestions, or has anyone written up someone similar that i could take notes from?

as always my thanks in advance for any advice and or help

Re: Ben 10 (again!)

Anyone catch the Ben10 Movie with the godzilla sized alien?

oh yeah. but now we need to add the following to the omnitrix:

Re: Rulebook reference help please

For myself' date=' I'd rather set some form of DC limit for MPA's - ie if the campaign max is 12 DC's, having three 12 DC attacks fired off as an MPA would be considered to exceed the campaign maximum. I'm not sure how I'd dovetail that in, however.[/quote']

 

I too find the ban weird, in fact I strongly encourage multipower MPA, the player buys a EB, a flash, and an entangle in multi slots and just mixes and matches the points instead of buying twenty different compound powers. I'm hesitant about allowing MPAs that are outside of frameworks because you can easily go above the campaign maximum.

I don't see anything in Hero designer for it, so I'm planning on just doing a custom disadvantage for it, but I wanted to hear what the rest of you thought of it.

Many VPPs have enough limitations on it that you can easily support multiple powers on at a time but how much of a limitation would it be to only be allowed to use a certain number of powers at a time? for example you have a gadget pool for attacks where every device has a -1 OAF limitation, now without a limitation you could have two devices going with full power but once you apply the limitation Gadget man can only have one power.

I think this simulates a Hero who has something like a gun or bow that you can only load one type of ammo into it at a time but they have hundreds of different kinds of ammo for almost any situation they encounter or a power ring where the user isn't disiplined enough to maintain more than one effect.

I was thinking a either a -1/2 or -1 to the pool because that can really lower the effectiveness of the VPP

Re: Active Point Maxima?

hhmm.... I think it has merit, I deffinately want to give it more thought and try it out on a couple characters, I think it works well for the GMs who want to allow players the choice of having a single power or two over the normal limit but not to have everyone take it.

Re: Stone Fist

Was also, now that I think of it, wondering how to represent his ability to reload his blaster one-handed.

special effects. if he reloads it faster than normal people, ten he has fast draw, but reloading it a special way is just sfx

Re: Stone Fist

I have a character I'm designing that starts to turn to stone when he is in moonlight. This is a bad thing for him, for if he ever turns completely to stone, it'll be perminant. Signs of the process are that his skin begins to look and feel rocky and he begins to stiffen up.

 

The character thus spends a lot of time indoors away from windows at nighttime unless it is cloudy or it's a new moon.

 

How do I represent a disadvantage like that?

 

Secondly, the character's left arm from below his elbow has been completely turned to stone. Since the upper part of the arm is unaffected, he can move it around, block swords with it, and punch with it), but can't use the hand for much of anything. How much of a limitation should he take for it?

just a warning but depending on your group this may not be a fun character to role-play, it would be particualarly bad if your GM plans most of his adventures at night. it does sound like an interesting character though.

the hand, take a physical limitation, sounds like an all the time, slightly at 15 points. a psychological limitation of "afraid of moonlight", and a susceptability to moonlight (if he takes enough damage to pass out or die then parts of him turn to stone), possible a DF depending on the campaign too. then buy a bunch of dice of HA for the stone fist.

Re: How far can a telekinetic throw himself?

As a little aside' date=' a red flag went off with this confluence of looking for a loophole to get freebie Flight and having what likely is a Physical Disadvantage (the bum leg) that was worth real points. People who can fly at will should [i']not[/i] get points for a Physical Disadvantage related to a walking disability.

 

Also, I agree that if you want to fly or bounce or whatever, do that with a Movement Power rather than trying to fabricate a free form of Movement out of a completely different Power. I get the sense that a few people here are confusing the Power of Telekinesis with the SFX that is their personal concept of how telekinesis ought to work. The Power of Telekinesis could have any SFX from sending out a little radio controlled drone equipped with a tractor beam to spontaneously generating a swarm of load-bearing butterflies.

 

Others are right to claim there is no "how Telekinesis really works" argument to be made, not only because there are no real world telekinetics, but also because the Telekinesis Power is a HERO game mechanic that may or may not have anything at all to do with a particular psychic ability. If you have a clear idea of what a particular character ought to be able to do, then buy all the Powers you need to buy to flesh out that idea. Either you believe it ought to be a particular way strongly enough to pay to make it so, or the additional Power(s) you wanted to use in the game really aren't that important to your concept.

 

Regards,

Brainstorm

very true, and I agree for the most part. However, in my opinion, allowing a character to throw themselves (and take an apropriate ammount of damage) with their TK you get a nice very limited way of using thier TK to move that simulates not having very good control with moving themselves that they won't use often, and it will hurt when they do use it, but is a way of roleplaying growth of a characters powers.

EXAMPLE: the young telekinetic (and I freely admit TK can simulate any SFX not neccisarily psychic of nature but this is for ease of reference) can move other people but has trouble wraping his mind around moving himself, he may ocaisionally fling himself by holding onto an object and throwing it with TK. it hurts, and he doesn't use it often because he is never sure if he'll actualy land where he's aiming but eventually, with time, he learns more precise control and can acurately and safely fling himself across great distances (his character sheet now has leaping) and then with time, He'll learn to use his TK to hold himself up in the air to Fly

Re: How far can a telekinetic throw himself?

Just a further note:

 

Does anyone allow a character to "Throw Themselves" with normal STR?

 

I woiuldn't allow it for the same reason that I wouldn't allow for Telekinesis (or Ranged STR), it doesn't make any sense to do it that way. To me, Leaping, which uses STR, models the SFX more accurately.

 

Just My Humble Opinion

the way I figure it is this, the TKer plots what happens to the object bfore he starts using the power, so he just pick up and flings the object, if he goes flying with the object hell be hurt when he lands... It gives tk a little functionality but at the cost of some dice of damage, the leaping method is just free leaping and not much can go wrong.

Re: An Old Quiz, But A Nice One.

You scored as Storyteller.

You're more inclined toward the role playing side of the equation and less interested in numbers or experience points. You're quick to compromise if you can help move the story forward, and get bored when the game slows down for a long planning session. You want to play out a story that moves like it's orchestrated by a skilled novelist or film director.

Storyteller

83%

Tactician

75%

Power Gamer

67%

Method Actor

67%

Specialist

42%

Butt-Kicker

33%

Casual Gamer

17%

Re: How far can a telekinetic throw himself?

I'm glad most of us came to an agreement that its ok to throw yourself ocaisionally as long as all throwing rules such as to hit and damage are followed

Re: How far can a telekinetic throw himself?

I know I've seen somewhere - either rules or FAQs - that you can't use telek to move yourself in any way; you have to buy the movement power.

yeah, but imho it's stupid not to allow something like what garou describes, you can pickup and trown other people and objects, surely you could pickup and throw something you are attached to, that doesn't mean it won't hurt though.

Re: Spending END

I think that to switch away from endurance reserves would caues batteries and similiar objects to be very clunky instead of the streamlined aproach. the miggest diference between the end reserve is that it recharges at a steady rate (default once per turn) independant of whether the character is KOed or takes a recovery otherwise you need to apply a bunch of advantages and disadvantages to plain end to get the same efect. Unless you're going very realistic end usually doesn't play a big part anyway, you just have to worry about it after a long battle or if you are pushing a lot. in the realistic settings you just don't let people take end reserves for the most part.

Re: Crossfire?

I am not familiar with the Sucker manuever, but that sounds like what you want.

 

If not, you might try modeling it as "grab and block" manuever, the exception being the "grab" doesn't actually restrain anybody and would be a DEX vs. DEX roll instead of STR vs. STR. If you make a good "DEX grab" then you have successfully interposed yourself between your target and someone else attacking you. Then you can "block" with the target of the DEX grab (OCV vs. OCV roll), the SFX being you duck out of the way at the last instant and the poor shmuck you set up gets hit instead of you. If you blow the block roll, then you weren't fast enough or you timed it wrong and get hit yourself.

 

To be really good at this manuever, either have a high DEX or buy levels with it. Lots of supers have much higher DEX than the mooks this would typically be used on, so you wouldn't need too many levels to make it reasonably effective.

 

______________________________________________________

Drained and blue

I bleed for you

You think its funny

But you're drowning in it too.

- Alice in Chain

I like this Idea, sounsd good.

Re: You cannot defeat me!

Mechanon's always a fun villain to use. We had a series of campaigns where Mechanon showed up. He started out as the robot to our first team, the Crusaders, and of course went mad and had to be defeated.

 

Later, our third or fourth team, faced a re-built version of him, Mechanon II, and defeated him.

 

A year or so later we made up a new team but, instead of being set in the early 1990s (wow, that was a long time ago!), it was set in the year 2019. Since it was far in the future I postulated that several more Mechies would have appeared and been beaten, so Mechanon VII showed up to fight the new team.

 

This version of Mechanon was very powerful. He also looked and acted like a human (think Commander Data from ST:TNG). He was the most powerful Mechanon yet, but the team was starting heroes. They tried to fight him but he mopped the floor with them, and captured them.

 

However, it was an age of internet and computers. One of the characters had a secret ID as a computer security expert -- his job was building virus-busting software. At the start of the adventure, his lab had been hacked by a very nasty computer virus that wiped out pretty much any operating system it touched. He had managed to isolate it, and comment out a key line in the virus, and had it stored on his networked hard drive for further study.

 

After the heroes managed to escape from Mechanon VII's prison, this intrepid hero got the idea to use the computer virus against Mechanon's computers. They had also seen that Mechanon communicated with his base's computers by plugging his hands into a socket (like R2-D2 communicates with the computers in Star Wars). So, they snuck into the main computer facility and downloaded the virus, and uncommented out that line. The virus turned on and started to wipe out Mechanon VII's computers -- his plans, his schemes, his missile launch codes. Mechanon, in a panic, plugged himself into the comptuer to try to stop the destruction of his data... caught the virus... and had his brain formatted. He became nothing more than a fancy statue. The team managed to beat him without firing a shot.

 

C

now that's cool

Re: Characteristic power NCM

Arguably characteristics are such a bargain' date=' especially in a super-level game, that even having a 'normal human' concept should be worth something.[/quote']

 

I think that is why there are two different "normal human" disadvantages I've seen one where they take extra extra damage from falling and KB, and the other (called mere-mortal) that takes 2x body from every attack

Re: Help me finish a character?

+40 is a metric butt-ton of STR for a 75 pt game. If it's damage you're after, go for csl's and damage levels w/ martial arts or maybe a hand to hand attack power (3 pts/ d6 net instead of 5). If it's raw strength you want, ask your GM what he or she has in mind for campaign maxima.

 

You say "a bunch of limbs." Flesh this out. How many? What kind? Arms? A tail? Legs? Tentacles? A trunk? Amoeboid pseaudopods that can be extended and retracted at will? Can these limbs buy you an inch or two of stretching? Always handy (so to speak). Can they justify an extra inch or two of running? How about a super leap? Extra limbs = extra blocking. Additional CSLs with martial block could be a lifesaver, and a cheap one. The lesser forms of missile deflection can also be justified by extra limbs.

 

Consider a multipower or elemental control based around the extra limbs, like this:

 

Extra Limbs Elemental Control:

8 Control Cost (All powers foulable -1/4)

8 Superleap 20"

8 STR + 20

8 Stretching 4"

8 Clinging Damage Shield, +9 STR

6 Missile Deflection, bullets and shrapnel, +3 to roll (Costs END - 1/2)

 

Total cost - 46 points. You have 29 left to round out the character. One entangle and you're toast, but such is life. Achilles had his heel, too. You could do it as a Multipower for less - About 25 or 26 points, I think, but it diminishes utility significantly.

 

Buy some armor instead of Damage Reduction. Make it Ablative if you're feeling frisky - it cuts down on cost but doesn't last as long as you might like. It will make you fight smarter, and damage reduction will get a 75 point character hosed in the first turn. (The character you sketched above had a PD of 2, and a STUN of 20. A 22 point attack would CON stun him, and that's an average 6d6 attack - a typical brick or martial artist punch at 75 point level. Two shots and he's history. Meanwhile, 30 points of armored jacket gets you a PD of 25, and an ED of 25, and the 22 point hit does nada. In truth, you don't have 30 points to blow on defenses. I'd suggest about 20 tops, and probably closer to 15 if you can squeak it.

 

I think the clinging damage sheild is a nifty idea, but it will get you in trouble when you fight Captain Hedgehog.

 

And save a few points for a background skill or two. It makes it look like a character, and the ability to do something besides push-ups out of combat can be handy.

 

FWIW, the only on extra limbs limitation on the STR would be worth very little if I was GM. -1/4 maybe.

I think I would with -1/2 restrainable limitation on the EC and all it's powers instead of -1/4. that allows a few more points to flesh out the character and seems to be the same limitation you're going for.

Re: Cyberpunk resources?

It's called Robot Warriors, and it's a pretty cool little game. A trifle dated in terms of the source material (mid-1980's), and it's one of the pre-Fourth Edition HERO games with its own unique iteration of the HERO ruleset. The whole thing is self-contained in the one book.

 

OTOH our colleague Chris Goodwin has created an inspired update/integration of the original RW rules with Fifth Edition: http://home.comcast.net/~archer7/rw2hero.html

your link-fu is strong master.

Re: Characteristic power NCM

yeah, me too. that's my thoughts.

Re: Characteristic power NCM

well I think the problem with putting NCM only in Genre books is that it is apropriate for many genres. just like certain talents, skills, powers, and disadvantages are apropriate for many genres but not neccisarily all of them (you probably wouldn't want a golden age hero with a drug addiction for example. ) but if you were to remove it from the main rules, think of the genres NCM is apropriate for, fantasy hero, many start hero settings, pulp hero, and many dark champions games. with all those settings if you don't put them in the main rulebook, you either have to reprint the rules multiple times or you only print them in one genre sourcebook and annoy your customers by saying that the setting uses the NCM rules found in a different $30 sourcebook for a genre they may have absolutely no interest in playing.