hammersickle59

Re: Summoning

Regarding the EGO contest for summoning. The FRED says the summoner gets -1 per 10 active points in the summoning spell to his ego contest roll. This seems both too harsh, and completely out of place (at least in my campaign). For one, I don't allow any PC's to "build" the things they want to summon. They are summoning from a predefined set of demonic beings. If I think the style of demon should have "weak willed" or "strong willed" then I throw that in, also I would adjust the demons actual ego stat up or down. The PC's also have NCM in play, so it would be hard for the summoner to get his EGO above 20. Right now his EGO is 20 and he has an EGO roll of 13. Already thats a harsh control roll, considering his entire concept is summoning and he cant do anything else. This roll essentially means that the bigger point value your summoning, the harder it is to control, and I certainly disagree with that. My urge is to just ignore that rule. Any suggestions? Dean

Re: Reverse Gravity Sounds good. A bit expensive to have enough TK St to chuck people very far, but it works. Thanks KS. Dean

I need suggestions as to what this implies and what powers to use to express it. As a base i'm thinking, everything/everyone in a certain area falls upward a certain amount, then starts falling back down, and then would take fall damage like normal (if they couldn't avert it using the various ways to get around fall damage). Any other implications this might have? How would you build the above? Thanks in advance, Dean

Re: New Combatant. Which phase does he start? Very funny Sean. lol. Thanks guys, that makes sense. Dean

If there is two guys fighting in a room, and then a 3rd person opens the door and sees them fighting on phase 6, does the new person start his actions on phase 6? And if he doesn't have a phase till 8 then he just stands there and watches for 2 segments? I don' remember any specific rule going over this so I assume the above is how it works. It's a little weird though because normally when combat starts everyone can act right away (unless you have a speed of 1). Dean

I'm GMing a Fantasy Campaign that uses NMC. If a spell or enchanted item would raise the characters characteristics above the NCM would it be half as effective? e.j. INT 20, and a staff that gives +10 INT, would he only get +5? What if done through aid, same result? Just wanted advice on this. Dean

When someone has +5 DCV CSL's (for 5pts each) do they get those while surprised and out of combat? If they do, ofcourse its halved (like the base DCV). My instinct is that they dont get it, they didn't have time to assign it. I assume other people have house rules that put surprised opponents at lower than 1/2 DCV. If someone isn't detectable by any of the 5 senses and the victim is sitting down in a chair, how does he possibly get half DCV? Why not zero? Dean

Re: Bocv Based on Con turned out to not be what I wanted. Your build looks interesting though. A little complex, but its more like what I was thinking. ty Dean

Re: Bocv Perfect! Never new of that modifier....based on con...hmm... Dean

How do you take a mental power and make it so that it operates Based on normal CV not ECV. I cant find an advantage or limitation for that. I'm taking Mind Scan and making it NND (so mental defense doesn't apply) but I also don't want the power to be based on EGO. CV doesn't have a good feel either but I would still like an answer to the above question for curiosity reasons. Dean

Re: Ask a question, get an answer. Wow. Lots of great advice. Thank you ghost angel, killer shrike, Lucious and Jtelson for all of your arguments and examples on how to build this. Those were some great example spells killer shrike Detect and Clairvoyance both seem like viable ways of building a few versions of this spell. Dean

I want to build a divination spell in which you ask a question and you get an answer. I may limit the amount of time of casting or limit it to yes or no questions, or put an activation roll on it; but for now, I need a base power to start with. Let me give an example. Player casts the spell and asks the GM "What did that necromancer have for lunch?"....GM answers. Any suggestions? None of the powers I looked at can really help. Dean

Re: Help with Clairsentience Yeah, thats what I built eventually. The mindscan for the targeting. Except with Clairvoyance I bought up the range manually instead of with Megascale. I''ll have to check which way is cheaper. That sounds like a dumb thing but actually when you have to buy two versions (as in the example above, one with mega and one without) then the other way might be cheaper. It keeps doubling so once you get it up there it goes up quick. Dean

Re: Help with Clairsentience Thats not what clairvoyance does. Having no range modifiers and global range doesn't let you sense everything on the planet; it merely lets you place your perception point anywhere on the planet. The issue is, there is a place on the planet that I want to see, but I don't know where that place is (aka, a moving person, who might be in china, or japan or usa etc...) My reading of Clairvoyance is that you have to state where your putting your perception point. Saying, "I want to see where Dr. D is" is just as arbitrary as saying "I place my perception point in the area that would give me the most beneficial information to defeat the campaign". Ok, maybe not that bad, but I don't think either is allowed without extra powers or advantages. Dean

Re: Help with Clairsentience Thanks guys, but neither advice really helps my situation (i think). Assuming range was massive and there were no range modifiers, i could put my sight anywhere on the planet (as long as I knew where that place was). But what i'm trying to do is, "my sight is over this guy, wherever he is". I assume I need a way of finding where he is before i move my sight over him......right? Dean

Clairsentience is a bit vauge on placing your perception point. 1. it can be anywhere within range. 2. the gm may ask for a to hit roll to place it in a place that you cant see. I want to build a clairsentience that can have a perception point above another person (that person chosen at the time of casting). Another words, I use it to spy on people. How would you guys handle the targeting of this? A built in Mind Scan? That would be a very expensive mind scan......(locating one person in the world)... Dean

Re: Lose Weakness I believe the borg were the first to use that tactic by the way. I remember a torpedo hitting them and then none of the same kind of torpedos could damage the cubes Could this be handled by a Limitation on Lack of Weakness? Maybe not, I'm not familiar with the mechanics for the Lack of Weakness power. Its weird that Find Weakness is its own power. You would think you should build it from scratch. It doesn't flow well with the rest of the Heroes powers in my opinion. It doesn't have a building blocks feel. Dean

Re: Lingering Teleport There wasn't any specific action I was trying to perform with the teleport. I was trying to create a zero phase teleport for "feel" reasons. I've gamed in Rolemaster for a long time and I dont like the feel of a teleport taking more time simply because you want to go farther; but I was probably going about solving that in the wrong way. How much would that lim be worth? (+20" only for half moves). My guess is -1/4 Dean

Re: Lingering Teleport Well....buying limited speed (as in having more phases) isn't the same as an action taking no time. Mechanically it woudn't work in my case. For example. I want to be able to teleport my max hexes (20) as a zero phase and then attack. I cant do that with increased limited speed. I should probably use a trigger on teleport to have it take no time. Dean

Teleportation, Lingering (5 minutes), Gestures, Incantations, Extra time (delayed phase). I'm trying to create a spell in which I cast it and now I can Teleport for the next 5 minutes. The above outline does that. The problem I'm having is that I want it to take a zero phase action to teleport, not a half or full. How would you guys go about doing this? Trigger? Teleport is a movement power so I assume it takes the usual "half phase" to move up to half your hex's and a "full phase" to move up to your max. Correct me if I'm wrong. Dean

I want to build a spell that can create a tunnel in water (either vertically, to reach the ocean floor, or horitzontally, so he can walk in it (he's buying water walk separetly)). Tunnel says you cant use it on gas/liquids. which power should I buy to represent this? TK that only works on water is too expensive (it would require vast strength to move all that water). Also, after he cancels it, the tunnel would close. Change Environment doesn't seem to handle this well. A long thin force wall to hold back the water? hmm.... Suggestions? Dean

Re: Problem with Drain/Suppress. Explain please. I agree that its cheaper to buy speed as a power with lim's than it is to buy AID speed. However, I think its more in the spirit of the system to build it using AID. Thats what the AID power is meant for. Also, somewhere in FRED it says "if you can build a power multiple ways, the most expensive is probably the correct way". Not an exact quote mind you, but something to that extent. Dean

Re: Problem with Drain/Suppress. Explain please. Thanks guys, I didn't know about the ruling of "consuming additional charges". That would be a reason why drain is still valid. Dean

I just got done building a power that drains a persons speed. One version I used Suppress and the other version I used Drain. Suppress was half the cost. My problem is this. I modified Suppress to work almost exactly like Drain and it was still much cheaper. I can't imagine any drain type of effect that shouldn't use a suppress to achieve, as it will always be just as powerful, but cheaper cost, than Drain. The two builds are below. Suppress Time (1): Suppress Speed 15d6 (75 Active Points); 1 Recoverable Continuing Charge lasting 1 Minute (-1/2), Others Only (-1/2), Spell (-1/2), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4) Real Cost: 23 pts Drain Time (1): Drain SPD 15d6 (150 Active Points); Others Only (-1/2), Spell (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4), Incantations (-1/4) Real Cost: 60 Note: This is even with leaving the Ranged advantage out of the Drain build, which means suppress is both more powerful cause its ranged and because its half the cost. Also, If I changed the durations to be the same (using continous charges) This would only hurt the ratio even further because its more expensive for Drain time to have a delayed recovery rate, than it is for the continous charge to have a longer duration. Additional Note: I'm using "Recoverable continuing charge" to set durations for spells in my setting. It takes "mana" (END Reserve) to cast them also. They can be cast as much as you want, as long as you have the mana. I'm using "recoverable" to represent that (i.e. recovering mana while resting). Allowing the above suppress to be used more than once a day may be whats offsetting the cost. Thoughts? FRED says "Generally a character should not be allowed to use Recoverable Charges to simulate Charges that return to him on a quicker than once-per-day basis, but the GM can allow this if he thinks its appropriate". I did think it was appropriate and convenient (to set durations) but now I might have a problem on my hands with the above example. On a side note; any other ideas for setting durations without using continous charges? Dean