DrFurious

Re: Easily forgotten Invisibility, a different interpretation of the Fringe effect (maybe with different costing to reflect applicability in combat time/scenes/afterwards) and Invisible Power Effects. Pricey to do with Invisibility but that's a general problem with some power constructs.

Re: Campaigns that don't use Disadvantages??? Nowadays, I'd probably change disadvantages to work more like the BITs concept in the Burning Wheel RPG - the players invoke them in order to 'advance' in some manager. Either as xp or more appropriately some drama dice mechanic. I've found that players too often take disadvantages they really aren't eager to play just because they're trying to reach the max. disadvantage points allowed. The attitude is often 'I can put up with this disad' or 'it won't be that bad'. This doesn't apply to all disads but invariable those kinds slip into their design. All IME.

Re: New Powers The question to ask is does Hero need more new powers? IMO, there is already quite a proliferation of advantages that makes it difficult to keep up with out a heavy time and book investment.

Re: Aid...still broken? My hero-fu may be a bit rusty but I think your construct may be putting you as well off as you think: The aid should be adding on average about 24 points to stats/powers/etc each time. At some point, the constant END expenditure (-31 + 24= -7 per phase) is gonna knock you into unconscious (END -> burn STUN). Even if you can keep even, you're not gonna be recovering much END after you use any power that costs END. The fade rate has also gotta play into the equation here. Anyways, this screams abusive (two stop-sign advantages) so I'm sure few GMs would allow it in the game.

Re: Disadvantages giving xp

Re: Disadvantages giving xp Perhaps you were just lucky I'd hope you'd agree that the scenario I outlined could occur with some frequency in other groups. The point being that a mechanical reinforcement could be a better solution rather than having a debate between problem players & GMs on the issue during character creation and during play. Fair enough. What do you think about having hunteds that aren't on the PC's sheet? You could stat it out as a mystery hunted but not every player wants to have that event on his character. Perhaps a better complication would be along the lines of "Frequent Target of Hunteds". Again, I'm thinking of more GM flexibility and avoiding having to re-calculate points on the character sheet. The difference is that an upfront award is harder to take away than something that is awarded during play. An analogy would be a loan. The bank awards a loan based on payments being received. If the borrower doesn't pay, a procedure can be started to get the money back but the borrower still has had the enjoyment of the funds for a period of time. It doesn't seem that this is an issue with the people you've played with but it can be with some groups. I'm advocating a reward-as-you-play system to avoid hassles and to encourage all spectrum of players to follow the same pattern with a minimum of fuss.

Re: Disadvantages giving xp One might argue that the players should be defining the integral parts of their character regardless of any up-front point award. I've had situations where players are scrambling to get some disadvantages just to reach the max points from disadvantages. If they don't then they'll be short of points when compared with other players - the character generation portion of the game kinda becomes a competition. which doesn't really sit well with me. One problem I have with certain disadvantages is that it's encumbant on someone to make sure that they are entered into play. A lot of the psychological disadvantages are like this. Sure, if you have good players this isn't an issue but you can't guarantee that all your players will be good ones. If the player doesn't do this, then what happens? The disad is removed and the points need to be adjusted or a new disad is brought up (which can again deferr the problem). Another one is Hunteds. They can introduce a lot into the game: the player is telling the GM that he want's stories involving this hunted, the GM has a plot hook to use for that character, etc. But what if the hunted sub-plot doesn't mesh well with the GMs plans for the campaign? Does this just become free points for the PC? Does the GM run a game with NPCs that he's forced to do so since the player took them as a Hunted? What about other NPC villians that complicate the PCs lives - they're effectively hunteds but they don't appear on the sheet. Does this add points to the characters? What if the hunted is killed? Are points removed? Do you have to come up with another hunted? IMO, this opens too many questions on what should strictly be a matter of story and not mechanics. Recently, I'm favoring game mechanics that reinforce behavior for players. Disadvantages should have specific game effects (modifications to dice totals, defenses, earning of experience). Ones that don't, are really just for flavor - much like the role of defining special effects for powers. This reduces the potential for the player or GM to ignore them. They have a straight mechanical effect which you apply when the situation comes up during play. This still suffers from the requirement that the situation needs to occur but it is better than the other disads. What I do object to is that requirement that the GM needs to work this element into the story to make the disad actually limiting. The presence of that kind of disad actually makes the GMs job just a bit harder by adding another requirement to his list. A point in this thread is that we're talking about Disadvantages giving rewards - namely xp. As others have pointed out, this can be problemantic. There is the speed of advancement, lack of knowledge or control when the disadvantage comes into play, and others. I'd suggest that we really need another reward other than xp. Since many of these disadvantages can complicate a situation for a PC (and hence make the game more interesting) there should be a reward to the player to help him influence the story. Some inspiration can be taken from the fate points in FATE, Drama point from Buffy/Angel, or artha awards from Burning Wheel. Imagine applying such concepts to a superhero genre - the saving of innocents and letting the bad guy get away. In the standard approach you'd have the heros rush over to protect the innocents because 'my disad says so' or because that's the way they've envisioned the character. Not a problem with the good roleplayer but with a take-advantage-of-the-system kinda guy, not so much. Now, if there was a reward mechanic: the PC has the Protective of Innocents trait. The player makes the choice to protect the innocents and let the villian get away, hence complicating the situation (but making the story interesting) - he gets a hero point that he can spend later (e.g. change die rolls to create a heroic scene rather than hoping for a random result). The less noble player might very well do the same but his motivation might be to accumulate the hero points because it makes his character more powerful and competent. The end result is the same - the character saves the innocents and the genre conventions are maintained. So long as the player's choice makes things harder for his character and the game more interesting - he should be rewarded right then and there. If the player frequently makes the choices that are counter to this trait - then it never really was descriptive of his character AS DEFINED BY PLAY. No problem, he hadn't gotten points at creation for taking that trait anyways and hasn't gotten hero points during play. A concensus could be reached that the appropraite trait for his pc would be Disregards Innocents in Danger and the Protective of Innocents traits is changed. The above can also simulate how characters can evolve during gameplay. The comics and books are filled with stories about characters who evolve. I think I've rambled on enough now. Really. In such a situation, would you consider paying points to have such a plot hook for your character?

Re: Disadvantages giving xp The Burning Wheel system actually takes a different approach where you obtain negative traits (i.e. disadvantages) that if they complicate matters (and hence make the story interesting) then you obtain artha (an experience award). It's a different way of looking at the situation and not without some value. How often do you find a GM attempting to force a player to roleplay out the character's disadvantage?

Re: Problem with creating a FH spell. Ya know, with all this debate on what the advantages can and cannot accomplish it seems to me that the simplest answer is to use a transform. You'd need to bend the rules a bit in what the transform is targeting (i.e. a power or the spell) but once that is done, then you pretty much have carte blanche on the controlled spell. I think it *IS* a valid construct and probably costs more than the other constructs listed. Doesn't one of the meta-rules state that the most expensive construct among equivalent constructs is the one to use? [Edit: Not to spoil anyone's fun for the debate. Please continue ]

Re: Problem with creating a FH spell.

Re: Problem with creating a FH spell. I seem to recall some rules for using Transform to target Powers (as well as Social Transforms, Mental Transforms, etc). I think it was in the Ultimate Super Mage. [Yep. See pg 50. The idea behind it was if you could destroy(dispel) a power you may just as well transform it.]

Re: Money in Superheroic campaigns It seems we really need to break things out into more specific categories than just money. An idea that was floating around in my head this morning was to have a equipment & technology access level set for a campaign with a perk that determines at what level above that you can obtain. If everyone has access to the same equipment, does it really make sense to have them pay points for it? Why not have them pay appropriately costed points for a perk if they can access rare and extraordinary equipment. The catch of course it costing this properly in balance with buying powers with points. I'm sure someone may mention that paying points for equipment prevents things like superman buying a bulletproof vest. Honestly, we're all adults and we should be able to "play to genre" in some aspects without resorting to a game mechanic to force adherence. Similarily buying sport teams, newspaper chains to run stories you want, etc. would be the function of an influence perk (IIRC exists in some form already). The point of these perks are that they ARE tied to the environment and factors outside the character's control. If you don't want that limitation, then spend the points to get what you want (foci, powers to manipulate the press, etc.)

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA?

Re: I don't think I can move

Re: Green Lantern Object Creation... I don't recall the particulars of FW but it occurs to me that you could use the weight of the people on the bridge as a strength to break down the FW. You put too many people, the bridge breaks.