Venatius

Re: Were these left out, or no? Hmm. That's a good argument there, I s'pose! I do see how some such things are "self-balancing" - your hoverboard analogy is a good example. I'm just something of a rules-fiend myself at times. I like to see everything bolted down tight as can be in a tabletop system. I mean, I have my limits, of course, but it's just a personal quirk/preference I enjoy. But you have a good point. I'd forgotten the book's discussion of keeping in mind the sideline ramifications of "special effects", which is VERY applicable to this topic. I suppose that until or unless it becomes important, your logic is sufficient to arbitrate this issue. I'll work out something more specific if/when it ever becomes neccessary. Now, if only there were a way to let Sticky run through more "generations" of victims than just two without craziness like making its area encompass the entire world. Then again, it might very well be a mercy of game preservation/balance that it cuts off as short as it does. The ideas I've had for it are very entertaining, but in actual practice in an actual game, they'd probably be grotesquely unbalanced.

Re: Were these left out, or no? Don't worry overmuch about it. It seems that, unlike with making contagious powers via the Sticky attribute, there's no way to assign a power so that it exclusively influences its own focus, not the character. To clarify what I meant with the hoverboard though, the difference is that the HOVERBOARD flies. A character can ride it, of course, and you'd be pretty justified in just treating it like the flight power with a focus. But in BESM, you'd be entitled to a TINY discount since the ability belongs to the board itself. You don't just touch the board and gain the independent power of flight. You just take advantage of its own powers of flight. That has several drawbacks. You could fall off of it and it could zoom away on you. It might not fit into a confined area. It's not the same as, say, magic boots that grant the CHARACTER the power of flight. Similar enough that the discrepancy is tiny. It's just that the other system does allow a teensy little discount because of the disadvantage involved. Similarly, the "flying gun" example was just to distinguish it. I'm not actually trying to design a flying gun. I'm just distinguishing a gun that, itself, can fly, versus one that somehow helps or causes its owner to fly. It's just an attempt on my part to illustrate a silly situation in which the power belonging to the focus wouldn't be all that useful, and where it would thus be important to designate it differently. It might still SORTA be useful. Perhaps, for example, the gun can fly to its owner's hand. But that's really quite a different thing from the gun giving its owner the power of flight. My own solution will probably just be to incorporate a variable-discount "affects focus only" limitation for powers, though I'm not sure what fair discount rates would be. I'm inclined to think -1/4 if the power is still substantially useful to the object's owner (the hoverboard, or maybe an item that can heal itself), up to -3/4 if the power is nearly useless (the flying gun or the invisible ring).

Re: Were these left out, or no? Ohhhh, I see! So if you have, say, a sword that's not bought as independent, and somebody shatters it with an attack or steals it or knocks it from your hand into a lava pit, it's assumed that either the GM will make sure another falls into your possession later, or you can re-invest the points, eh? Whereas if it was Independent, you're out of luck, but that's part of why you got such a steep discount on it. That makes much more sense, thank you. The book wasn't as clear on how one might handle the loss of a normal focus differently, versus an independent power.

Re: Were these left out, or no? I suppose the payoff to the disadvantages of the hoverboard would probably be the Independent restriction on the flight power, possibly. I'm not 100% sure I understand the difference between an independent power versus a universally usable focus, but that's kind of a sideline issue. At the end of the day, though, it doesn't really seem like there's much of a way to account for a power that solely belongs to the object itself rather than affecting its owner. Though adding a -1/4 "Affects focus only" limitation isn't exactly a backbreaking effort, I just really loathe redundancy, and I wouldn't want to add that if there's already something that fairly directly accomplishes the same thing. Same might go for a (probably MUCH) more expensive version of Sticky to increase the "chain" of who can be affected. I appreciate the input regardless! These are easily rectified problems. I'd just hate to put in even that minimal effort of designing those two things if it would be a redundant addition.

Re: Were these left out, or no? So far, it's not really sounding like there's a real clear way to do either of these things. As far as I can tell, the ideas thus far, though not bad, don't really QUITE capture the main property of a contagious power - namely, the ability for a victim to pass it on to others. As far as the object thing, it seems as though I may have been misunderstood. Specifically, while I understand an object can BE a power in Hero, the default assumption is that the object somehow functions as the power. For example, a gun is an RKA, magical winged boots are flight, and a suit of armor is..... well, armor. But what concerns me here is whether there's a way in the mechanics to specifically designate a power belongs to, and functions on, the object itself, not its user. For example, an item whose "flight" power reflects that the object ITSELF flies, not that it allows its user to. It comes to mind because BESM allows this, as well as variable discounts based on how useful it is. For instance, a hoverboard is still pretty useful, even if it doesn't confer the power of flight on its user. A gun with an inexplicable tendency to sprout wings, however, isn't useful at all. EDIT: I'm an idiot. As it was sort of indirectly pointed out a few posts up, the Sticky modifier more or less does what I was looking for. It doesn't fully resolve the issue though. It doesn't persist beyond afflicting those who contact the original victim, for one. The other problem is it's touch range, but I suppose you can probably put an AOE modifier on the modifier to rectify that.

Hiya all. Let me cut to the chase. Dabbling with BESM really turned me on to the whole concept of "universal" RPG systems, which lead me promptly to Hero. I must say, I've LIKED what I've seen so far. It seems to have been very well thought through, seriously considering many of the possibilities and applications of the things it provides. Overall, I'm gravitating toward "trading up" to Hero from BESM. However, there are a few "so close, yet so far!" points that are bothering me. It's so near my ideal, but it SEEMS as though it leaves out a few things BESM didn't. I'd like to know if this is a mistaken perception on my part, or not. #1: Is there a way to create a 'contagious' power? For example, a radiation blast whose victim also damages nearby creatures for a duration (and spreads the effect to them), or an airborne disease, or a swarm of hungry but short-lived insects? #2: How is applying a power to an OBJECT handled? In BESM, there was a restriction you could add to an attribute that reflected that it applied to the object it was part of, rather than conferring that attribute on the object's user. For instance, you could distinguish between a ring that grants invisibility, or a ring that itself IS invisible. The latter case would get a sharp discount - the amount of the cost reduction depends on how useful this aspect is to the object's owner. Does Hero have a way to account for this? It's an awfully short list, which definitely testifies to how well Hero has covered its bases. I may revisit this if I later remember anything else, but these are the two that stick out in my mind. I've wanted to plan out a character who uses disease as a weapon for a while now, so #1 is a bit of a priority to me. And just in case, no, the fact that I could make up modifiers for these doesn't count as the system being able to do it. You can ramrod new mechanics into ANY tabletop system. I'm just trying to figure out if the rules already support this.