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Marcus

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  1. Other than for fluff purposes, Ive never found ‘Sense Group’ expansions to be worthwhile. If your goal is to have a character thats *super good* at sensing stuff, having one hum-dinger all-singing all-dancing ‘cosmic awareness’ style sense is more effective, cheaper, and easier to protect (anyone ever seen a flash to the unusual group?) Ive seen Stupendous Guy built that way, with the single super-sense cosmic-awareness style reflecting the combination of all of his heightened, microscopic, telescopic, targeting, mind-numbingly rapid senses.
  2. That’s really quite clever. I don't see an immediate problem, but Ill certainly think on it.
  3. I am deeply enjoying this conversation, but perhaps one of us should consider starting its own thread on ‘pricing limitations’ or even ‘Costs in Hero’? I forget how thats handled here, because its a good discussion but weve come a long way from the OP’s topic. I think VPPs have to be addressed carefully - compared not only to the unlimited VPP on one side, but also to a single power. A VPP, Energy Blast Only, Cosmic, beats the pants off of a variable advantage variable sfx energy blast of the same magnitude. I think the problem here is more with the variable advantage and variable sfx advantages (you just dont get anything like what you paid for), but its a thing to consider.
  4. -1/2 is here the reflex of -2 because the sum of the cost of two powers, with those limitations, is equal to the cost of the power without any limitations. 60 ED Not vs Fire (-1/2) = 40 Points. 60 ED Only vs Fire (-2) = 20 points. 40+20=60, the same as the cost of 60ED. Similarly, -1/4 matches to -4 for the same reason. 60 points with a -1/4 is 48. With a -4, 12. Sum? 60. This is not an argument as to what the proper value of ‘ED Only vs Fire’ should be. It is an argument that -whatever- the value of ED Only vs Fire may be, the sum of the costs of ED (Not vs Fire) and ED (Only vs Fire) should match the cost of ED (No limitation). In some games ED vs fire may be worth more, or less, but its like pie. The whole pie is equal to the sum of the parts. Or another way to write it: (A-B)+B=A, where A is ‘ED’ and B is ‘ED vs Fire’
  5. I agree with you, to a point. X may have sufficient penumbra about its capabilities such that there is overlap between the tools provided by ‘X’ and ‘Not X’. As an extreme example, ‘Only for Multiform’ is not a very great limitation on a VPP (As each form could easily buy any desired power/skill/etc). And a GM who interprets ‘Calming Emotions’ broadly enough - “The Guard doesn't care enough to keep you from taking the keys.” might well cause ‘Calming Emotions’ to cast a very broad shadow of capability. For all that said, I think the reciprocal will remain where I start my reasoning. I often find the values assigned to such limitations to be quite mean-spirited and serve to discourage a lot of cool/narrow/tricksy/flavor approaches on PCs, because one ends up manifestly not getting what one is paying for. NPC builds are frequently misleading, I feel, as they use points as description without concern for running out or utility, rather than as a resource that presumably has value and limits. Which I suppose leads us back to ‘It is up to the GM to make sure that the players get about what they paid for’. If player A took ‘Only to calm emotions (-1/4)’ and player B took it (-2), Player A’s limitation would be interpreted very differently at my table than player B’s! For the OP, Id still set it at - (a lot), but if it is as useful at your table as, say, Mind Lass’s OIF Amulet Mind Control, -1/2 is appropriate.
  6. At your table, what is the limitation ‘Mind Control, cannot be used to calm people down’ worth?
  7. Thank you, Sir. I often struggle with the limitation values where they are ‘exclusionary’ limitations. Only vs Fire, -1/2, being the most extreme example, but they are numerous. At the same time, points totals and GM intervention are a thing. If Captain Fireproof has 70 ED, only vs Fire, -1/2, then he and the GM have agreed that it will be 2/3 as useful as 70 ED, no limitations. 2/3 of the energy damage he takes is fire, or maybe ‘lava diving’ is a thing that will come up constantly. If it isn't 2/3 as useful as the unlimited power, then change the value until it is. I find if you apply that analysis to a lot of the ‘thats all its worth?’ limitations, things get fixed right quick. (Or I get ED vs Everything But Fire as -2 and cackle my way though most villain books. Well, until I run into Firewing, but for -2, I cant complain. AS to the original question - Id have to know more about the campaign. If Our Hero is on a team with Honey Badger, Rampage!, and The Unlikely Bulk, I *might* give that only -1. (Otoh, I might also lower the value those blokes get on their Angry Complications, since they hang out with Mr Not Angry). But to me this starts at -2 and I could easily see assigning -4, because Id likely give a player at most -1/2 and likely only -1/4 for Mind Control that cant be used to create calm.
  8. I value limitations by looking at the mirror of it. If ‘only to calm people down’ is -1, then ‘for anything other than calming people down’ is also…-1. If the first is -2, then the inverse is -1/2. You get what you pay for. So.. what would you charge this character, in this campaign, for mind control that can do anything *except* calm people down?
  9. Ooh. ‘Sylvestri Family Reunion’ is a phrase to *ahem* conjure with. That sounds like good fun.
  10. Might be interesting! We could use an Evil Ghost (tm). Ill also note that while we have Vampires, we don’t have any on the scale of a super-menace. A proto-sumerian blood-god type might be an interesting thing to have lying around. Long running subtle-layered undead plots, but with something sufficient to challenge the whole party at the end.
  11. CoTN is one of my most read to tatters books. I would love to see a 6e update. One minor quibble - I do not find that Tak makes Archimago obsolete. From motivation to backstory to methods, they are radically different. Archimago is the fall of man, subtle, plotting, arrogant and high handed - but you can have a conversation, at the least. Tak? Inhuman, relentless, unsubtle, -pure power- evil. (Also more Undead vs Demon Flavored). The fact that Archimago’s end goal is arguably *worse* than Taks is an irony. The idea of running Archimago as a villain for a story arc or two before warming up Tak, and watching the PCs go ‘Wait, Archimago is usually more subtle than this OH GOD UNDEAD ARMIES WHY’ only to ally with Arch against Tak is something I just have to do some day.
  12. Re: Alien Wars/PA Hero. Any thoughts? No discussion, or game, about the xenoforming of a planet under the player's feet is complete without some examination of the War against the Chtorr series. Cant remember the author, etc... but the basic story is that earth is being xenoformed under the human inhabitants by aliens, whose 'invasion' is just that.. the xenoforming. Some really neat stuff in there (and I think an RPG spin-off at some point). Check out the wikipedia entry.
  13. Re: Limitations on VPP Pool Let us consider the elements of a bog-standard VPP. You have the pool, and the control. The pool is points set aside that can be -anything-. Its like building your character, and saying "I don't want to spend these points right now. I want to be able to spend them for what I want, later on. And I get to change my mind." The control is what you pay for the ability to change your mind. Depending on how easily and how quickly you can change your mind, and what you can change your mind to, that control goes up and down. But the 'pool' cant be advantaged or limited, for the same reason that unspent character points cannot be advantaged or limited. You cant create a character and, before character creation, say that 'I can only buy magic powers (-1/4), so I should have 20% more points than anyone else, cause they can buy anything, and I can only buy magic powers' Once you buy actual powers with that pool of points set aside, then those powers may take limitations, reducing the amount of that pool they consume (just as limitations on any normal power reduce the amount of your starting character points they consume). The value of those limitations, like any other, will be based on how limiting they are (and will save you points thereby, just like they would save real points at character creation) If you think of the pool as 'setting aside initial character points', and juggling one's pool as 'on the fly character re-creation', then the logic behind the unmodifiable (note it can also take no advantages) pool becomes clearer. The only place the parallel breaks down is that, in character creation, one can spend, say, 30 real points for a 60 Active Point energy blast (with -1 in limitations). The VPP can NEVER create a 60 Active Point power if there are only 30 real points set aside. While limitations taken on powers out of the VPP may allow you to make more than one power that hits the VPP's active point ceiling, they cannot allow you to take powers bigger than said ceiling. Under certain circumstances, this can, admittedly, be frustrating. This disparity is probably some combination of 1.) An artifact of the initial assumption (pooled points to be spent later), and 2.) A tool of balance. (Ensuring that one can never, ever, ever have the power to buy 'whatever 60 point power I feel like' for less than 60 points). The disparity is probably, also, a Very Good Thing. If one wants only a few choices for ones VPP, and some heavy limitations that apply to everything, one might consider the Multipower over the VPP. If you don't have heavy limitations that apply to everything, then limiting the pool of the VPP is not an issue. If you want a broader selection of powers than is practicable in a multipower, then the rationale of 2.) above is a strong one. That said, rules are made to be broken. If the construct was one whereby a small reserve with large effects was appropriate, one might be able to talk the GM into allowing one to treat the VPP reserve as purely real points, without apply an active point limitation. I can think of a few circumstances* where this might be appropriate. *(as an example, heavily limited ritual magic VPP's, which should be capable of very high AP effects, may in some settings demand a vast degree of flexibility, and are still so hard to use that requiring the player to set aside a massive percentage of his initial character points to fund a huge pool that will never have all of its real points expended, just to get the very, very high active point cap needed for crazy high magic rituals that are more plot devices and less adventuring/superheroing powers doesn't seem quite just. Things should still cost what they are worth, neither more nor less) It is worth noting that there have been some side discussions about VPPs, and dividing the 'pool' portion of the VPP into 'Maximum Real Points' and 'Maximum Active Points', such that a given (say) 60 character points spent on a pool reserve might buy you a maximum of 30 real points of powers, but of up to 90 active points in a power (or the opposite). While outside the scope of the rules as written, your GM might also see this as an option, and it seems at least somewhat in keeping with the 'I dont want to spend these points right now, I'll create that part of my sheet later' rationale underlying the VPP. All, of course, IMNSHO, and as always YMMV. TTFN.
  14. Re: Immunity to Electric Attacks You must spread some around...
  15. Re: Caps and averages for your campaigns Ahh, that makes sense. Congrats on being able to hold the game together that long... our games hereabouts seem to have a shelf life, and wonce they get 'quiet', they never come back to life.
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