Kdansky

Re: Characteristic inflation

Obviously a DCV comes from DEX problem. If you can either have +1 DCV for 5 points, or +1DCV and +1 OCV and +2/3 to Dex rolls and +3 initiative for 6 points, why bother?

Due to how figureds work, nearly all characters carry around way too much STR/CON and DEX.

6th will rectify this.

Re: Guardian Angel

Luck 5d6, NCC (-1) because it's only defensively

Oh, sorry, that's the other thing... Wait... Luck UAA?

No, what you want is Danger Sense, and then attach it to someone. Isn't that Danger Sense UAA?

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others

I'd be wary of going to the forum. It's the first time anywhere where I put people on ignore. The 3e/4e "Avenger" bs and the fanaticism in some responses (the "if you don't agree with me and play it my way' date=' you're an idiot") is stupid. Discussions on strengths and weaknesses tend to go into flamewars as trolls of one form or another appear, and people love to feed them trolls! The books are not bad in regard to Roles, but I just see it as a mental shift from classes to combat roles as the primary focus. We can talk about Bricks here, since there aren't classes - but in a game where there are such defined (how do you say classes without classes?) - groupings of abilities and skills, it's a step backwards from game to metagame.[/quote']

I thought as much of the forums. That is why I don't visit them. The Hero forums are one of the most civilized places on the interwebs. Props to all you guys, btw

 

Now on the topic of roles: I really don't see the problem. Sure, there is some metagame involved, but that was always the case. You never wanted a Party without a cleric (well, we have one, and it's suicidal all the time). But since now it's written down, everyone complains.

 

 

True, but when they supposedly spent long hours playtesting and writing, it's a bit pathetic that the equipment list is tiny (not even the staple 10' pole! ), or that the ritual listing is small - I have a cleric player with two rituals at 1st level. She gets one automatically, and picks another. She hasn't - there's nothing she's interested in taking. Considering there is really 1 cleric ritual at 1st level, that says "They just didn't care" to me - or "we'll make them buy our subscription to DDI and a lot of other books to fill in what we intentionally leave out. That may make sense as a business model, but to me that says "we don't care about our customers".

Ok, I have to agree here. The rituals chapter is ridiculously short. Not having a generic equipment list doesn't bother me much, since that is very campaign dependant.

 

I would have liked to see more than the Basic set. Especially for $100-odd.

I've only borrowed the books, are they really that expensive? Sheesh.

 

 

My Fantasy settings were fantastic, but not like that. We never used "Hide in Plain Site", and if it came up, they would need a better reason than "my feat says I can" (or whatever it was). IIRC didn't that just mean a player could make a roll to hide if certain conditions were met (such as a ranger in the woods) while being in visual site? I have a SF buddy who can do that. I watched him disappear while he was an observer for an FTX. Definitely freaky, but entirely natural. That's just the (not-so-common) common sense we often hear about. I never had much problem making the setting what we wanted. It's pretty easy saying, "No, that feat isn't right for this setting" or "That can help your character" (or what have you). All rules need adjudication, and picking what works for your campaigns is DM 101. The more situations a rule system can cover, the more the DM will need to set the standards.

But I mean the name already implies that is is nearly as good as invisibility. If you play low-magic-DnD, then you're the exception.

 

 

Five encounters in 6 hours is a win? Given the simplicity, I expected a lot more than that, and the only game that worked out that slow was Rolemaster (average 1 combat in that same time frame). Maybe once people stop having to read the books to see what their abilities can do then we can actually get serious about it. My experience in the past puts encounters around 15-20 minutes. We put more time in exploration and other stuff. Of course, each system is different.

3.5 battles in 20 minutes? How did you manage that?! SafeOrDie spam? Which is by the way a huuuge D3.5 problem: Battles after about level 8 degrade into SOD-spamming, because nearly any decent spell will just destroy the opposition if they don't safe. Why should I Fireball if I can Powerword Stun?

 

 

The main difference with Hero is that we have split damage into Stun and Body. Like the Star Wars (d20) vitality and wound points. A Recovery just gets Stun and End. To more accurately reflect a healing surge, we'd need to use simplified healing and recover both stats at the same time. I've heard all the different explanations for what hp abstracts into, and some are better then others, but the surges push the boundaries for me - to be fair, I'm not a big HP fan - I prefer more granularity)

HP are a very old concept. It's kept out of two reasons:

A: It's old and established. Not good.

B: It's simple. Good.

I also like the body/stun concept a lot. In fact, that is one of the main reasons why I like and play HERO.

 

Now D20 HP just cannot be BODY. Because if you got 80 HP (that isn't even a high level), and an arrow dows 1d6, then you can take 20 arrows (about 70 damage) and look like a porcupine. But you are still running. That is just plain ridiculous. Therefore, I assume HP are a mix between stun and body. And that means that Second Wind is the same as a recovery.

 

Now, to be fair, I think those who really want to see it should borrow a book and look at it for themselves, although I wouldn't recommend buying it ($35 for a reading?) - the Keep module has simple entry-level rules (somewhat), and there is free stuff out there. You don't need to play to know you don't like it - does anyone have to play "Spawn of Fashan" to know you don't like it?

I am not sure if borrowing works so well, the rules can be a bit annoying to read since there are so many lists and tables. But then, you don't really need 6 books for 6 players, 1 book should easily be enough. That's about 5$ per person.

 

And pinecones commentary is in the wrong forums. I recommend 4chan for that kind of bashing.

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others

First off' date=' what's the PHP? I think I've seen you use it before, and still can't figure it out (Player's Hand...?). What is it?[/quote']

Of course, I am talking about the Player's Handpage. Or it might be a stupid mistake on my part

 

Now I'm curious to see who else has played it and is not really thrilled with it, but that can wait. For me, the Roles are something that, from reading the forum, seem to have taken precedence over the actual character. I've brought that up elsewhere, so I won't go into that here.

That is a interesting point. I have not followed the forum and only read the two books. They really rarely even mention the roles. I have no gripe into having supergroups of classes. That's like talking about Bricks and then going into Martial Bricks vs Speedbricks.

 

I liked the flexibility that 3e gave - it was almost Hero-like. I have a huge number of books for the game system (100+, ok), and for the most part they were for me - my players used (at most) 3 books. It wasn't too hard to keep up with their spells, especially once I bought a character program. Our group has never had the idiocy that many people complain about, mainly thanks to "Rule No". Anyway...

4e doesn't really feel like D&D for me. It's too "out there". I will admit that it can feel like the USPD (giving set powers), but instead of giving you a lot of choices, it narrows it down to 3 or 4.

The flexibility is based on the 100+ books. You are comparing a 400 pages core book to a full shelf. That can only go one way.

 

The fact that characters can routinely perform superhuman feats is too wuxia for me.

I agree. I don't like Champions either.

And D3.5 Hide In Plain Sight is not superhuman then?

Choice of setting. D20 was always superhuman. I'm glad they finally make this clear instead of doing it wishy-washy.

 

Our group of 6 players and I ran the KOTS module, and from around 8 pm to 2 am, we may have had 6 encounters, only one of which didn't involve combat.

I wouldn't blame the rules for that. Since your players have not been bored out of their mind by this and you can run 5 combats in one evening, that is both very impressive and a solid win for D4.

 

As D&D, what I grew up with (using the white box and the Players Handbook since the DMG was not out, then the blue basic set)...it's just doesn't have that feel. Others have said the same, the feel of the book is just not what we are comfortable with. It's not my D&D anymore. It's a new kids game, and it's not a good feeling. I feel old.

You might be My temporary group here plays ADnD, the really old stuff. It's horrid. They like it, because they got old with it. It's still plain horrid. As an outsider, that's easier to see.

 

And the covers are real cheap. Did I say that?

Can't argue with that

 

Anyway, hopefully Hero 6 will not be that way. I don't mind playing with out -of-date games (you should see my gamebooks), but it would be nice to not have so massive changes that it is not recognizable as the Hero we know and love, warts and all.

If you prefer the old game to the new game, even if you know the old game has many warts, then you should just play the old game and not even bother about the new one. The new game is meant for me

 

I forgot to say that I haven't played any MMORPG - never cared for them, nor would I fork over money every month for that.

Considering how many hours I got out of WoW, that was still cheaper than any other game. Mass Effect: 15 (13 mediocre) hours for 80$. WoW: ~3000 hours for 500$. WoW was cheaper, even assuming I spent 90% of my time idling or being bored.

 

Most of the new games have a health bar (or whatever) that regenerates with time, allowing you to continue on after rest. This is what the healing surges feel like. The abilities that recover with rest feel like the ones that recover after time (or when my mana/whatever refills).

That's an interesting take. Not quite wrong, either. It makes the Cleric-Problem go away though. I would love to discuss the pro/cons on this one though.

Also, have you ever taken a Recovery in combat? As I said: It's might or might not be video-game-like. But it's clearly HERO-like.

 

And, the whole attempt to keep everything balanced seems to me to have gone overboard. As I looked at the fighter powers as I was converting them, I found out that most of the higher ones were just variations of the lower ones, so you can have (96 someone said) powers, but if all they are are variations of 5 or 6 (with utility powers as well) - I just find it limiting. I'll see what later books bring, but I'm wary and unconvinced for now.

I agree. Currently, it looks really bland. But they want to sell another 100 books. They left blanks intentionally.

 

Oh yeah: I'm not a D4 fanatic. I have not even played it yet, nor will I in the near future. But I think the nay-sayers just bash it because that's what the cool kids do right now. And I cannot stand that.

Re: a variation on teleportation

I agree with me fellows. Just Teleport UAA, and you are set. You might want to have X-ray vision to be able to see them after teleporting them there and for being able to accurately make out the target hex

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others

The Monster states quite perfectly what I feel too. I am pretty sure that someone somewhere on the internet came up with "D4 is liek MMOPRG!" and from then on, everyone copied it. I have even seen people write that in the D4 thread in the fantasy hero forums. And they admitted they didn't even bother to read through the books. DnD is so important to the geeks that fans and haters stop thinking and just defend/attack the system because.

MMORPG: You cannot say "it's like an MMORPG", then follow up with "I don't have evidence" and reason "That's your oppinion!". Logic does not work that way. That has nothing to do with oppinion. Now before you flame me: Of course "This feels MMORPG-ish" is based on oppinion. But all the quotes I see name things that are present in MMORPGs, but actually have been present in DnD (or other P&P) for a looong time. Like the "once a day" powers. If you look at the 3.0 rules, it's full of them. Or HERO: Charges/Healing. And "At will" powers: Aren't those like nearly all hero powers? I mean sure, we have END costs, but that is a complex mechanic which is not absolutely necessary (and the END rules explicitly state that you can do away with it if you want to).

"Fighter feels like Wizard": Yes. No. Yes. He can use abilities (spells), like a wizard. Ok, I give you that. Which is also very WoW-ish. Oh, and very Hero-ish too. And also very -ish. Gamers have long ago realized that the basic D1 fighter was hellaboring to play. D4-Developers have finally figured that out too, after all other systems gave the fighters more interesting powers. Now, is he a wizard? Sure, he uses the same mechanics. But a Hero wizard also uses the same mechanics as a hero fighter, doesn't he? I think to answer that question, you would have to play both characters and see how well they designed the powers themselves. Sure, if you give both of them the same power with a different name, that won't be nice, but if you do it differently (like in hero: slap some limitations on the spell, and some other limitations onto the Bull Rush attack).

Many other changes are very, very hero-like: You start off at a decent powerlevel, you can cast more than one Magic Missile per day at level one. Why? Because that is boooring. Also, that was very MMORPGish. First level, you suck. Go kill some rabbits. Second level? Well, there are some rats over there, but be careful. So there it's less like a MMORPG.

Swapping out skills: A great idea. Why did nobody else come up with that? It does:

- Give inexperienced players a chance to replace a skill which looked good on paper but was pointless in practice. More fun!

- Give munchkins something more to think about. More fun!

- Gives everyone the ability to "fix" a messed up character. More fun!

Disadvantage? Well, you might argue "why does my character forget x?". Well, two sides to this: Either I don't give a damn, because it's a problem in game, like a broken construct. Or it might just be the +1 damage becomes +2 damage. Only in the last case (+1 damage becomes +3 heal) it's a bit weird. And even then: You probably already got something which would qualify as an upgrade to what you replace.

And by the way: If a player comes to me and says: "Hey, look, my character is constructed like this but I totally don't have fun with it because of xyz.... Can we change that?" My answer will be: "Sure, go ahead!" Now of course, they should not do that for every encounter, but I'm not playing with sensible people. If you don't allow this, then you are preventing people from having fun. Or for the slow: You are a bad GM.

So for people who are not experienced enough to realize this, it's put into the rules. Why not. It does not hurt.

Rules: Striker, Tank, Whatever. These are there. Have you seen many references to them in the PHP? I don't think so. Because it's a GM-help. Instead of having to spend horrible amonuts of prep-time for battles (D3.5 is worse than Hero in that regard) because you need to write down 40 spells from three books and a selection of 800 spells, and then write down the class combinations and saves and items and whatdoIknow, you can look at the monster manual, and choose according to the roles. Takes me like 5 minutes to set up a "fair" encounter for any party. Even if I know my players have strong characters, I can just up the ante by 20%, or if they all have non-combat chars, -20%. I adore this idea. Once again, I only ask: Why didn't anyone else come up with this?! GM prep time is one of the big P&P problems. Anything that can help reduce it is a great idea. By the way, HERO is a big sinner in that regard. I hope we learn something from it, but then I'm not sure how to do this, since character write ups are just complex in this game. No way around that I'm afraid.

The only thing that really strikes me as videogameish: Presentation. Lots of colour, every ability with it's own box of text, you could even print them on small playing cards and so on. The strong naming of everything (Stunned, Dazed, Shove, Shift, etc etc) is also something like that. And you know what? It also helps the game. Because where you had to have 20 books ready in case someone wanted to use a power (I play my D2.5 mage with a PHP on my knees, because every spell is an exception to everything), now you can figure out what they do eeeaaasily. You know, like HERO. If it says "EB", then you will roll some D6. And if it says "Double Knockback", then you double Knockback. You don't have to look up the spell which states: "The afflicted target will also be knocked back twice as much as usual." somewhere in a long paragraph of text. D4 became a lot like HERO. They took the good stuff mostly. The bastards

So for 6th: Lets drop our crap (we have collected enough of it) and focus on our strengths. And don't be afraid of changes.

DnD definitely pulled off a good version (much better than 3.0/3.5). You may disagree with that, but at least give it a fair chance. I have seen exactly ONE post which stated: "I've played it and did not like it." and about a thousand of "I have not played it and only skimmed the book, but it totally sucks!"

Re: 5e Minion Control Sheet Or Similar?

If I may highjack your thread: How do you guys do quick-and-dirty notes of NPCs in combat? Especially including Speed and so on?

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others

I am still wholly against the "DnD is now a videogame"-rumor. Frankly, I call male-cow-dung on that! If you think it is a videogame, then cough up some solid evidence, or else Miles Edgeworth will have a word with you.

I have read PHP and DMG (which is the better book and a *really* good ressource into Pen&Paper (yes, PEN AND PAPER!), especially for beginners).

What they did compared to 3.5: They abstracted! Like Hero does. For example it says somewhere that you don't have to use the default magic-SFX, you are free to chose your own. But everything else is classic: A Spell list, a Magic Item list, class descriptions, combat rules and so on.

The only thing that reminded me of a MMORPG: Terminology. And that is a good thing. Everyone and their mom has played a PC-RPG by now. Everyone knows these words. Why not explain it to them in a language they speak? Also, having a solid name for every effect is not a videogame thing. In fact, MTG probably came up with that (Flanking, Banding, Trample, Regeneration, and all of these).

For HERO: Yes, they changed an immense amount of things. It truly is a New Edition, not just a resell of the same product with a new cover and layout (like 5th?). But then, 3.5 was horribly broken, because it carried all the DnD 1+2 brokenness with it. Hell, I'm currently playing (didn't get a say) a 2.5 game. Rules wise, I could puke every session. I also don't want 6th to go quite as far, because that is not necessary in the case of HERO. But I want some really solid changes, which should not re-invent the wheel. To give examples: Figureds have to go. That doesn't even invalidate old character sheets, it just mis-prices them. Of course, primary characteristics have to be recosted (eg CON). Then I would like to resolve the Stun Lotto and "STR adds"-issues. And get rid of ECs. Then clean up some things (like Summon, read through the adders and you know what I mean) But that's about it. D4 went waaaay farther than that, basically rewriting the system from ground up.

Re: Buy Off Disadvantage

Either dependency, as Doc states. What you can also do:

If your problem (for example) is, that you don't have legs and cannot walk, but your armor conveniently supplies those, then that changes your Disad:

Normal. Physical Limitation, cannot walk. Very impairing, all the time.

This character: Physical Limitation, cannot walk. Very impairing, very rarely (namely when he does not wear his armor).

Buying off the disad as you suggest is rather weird (and not supported by RAW). And also very wasteful of good character points.

Re: Analysis: Attack Vs Limited Defense Energy Blast

I agree that AVLD is overpriced. Usually, NND is roughly as good, but cheaper. Also, AVLD Flash (Powerdefense) is certainly never worth a +3/4 (or whatever). That is +1/4 at the most. Because:

A: The defense is not rarer at all.

B: The character probably has other attacks against that defense and therefore having even more AVLD vs Powerdefense for a Drain-based character is clearly a disadvantage.

The only thing that could be said: It might be unexpected. But then, I can choose any SFX for my EB. That is about as unexpected and does not cost any points.

Re: Is it Flash or is it me?

I'm confused. What does this have to do with "always on"?

 

Always on has nothing to do with the time it takes to work. Unless you mean that if he did not have it active it would not have healed him, and then it wouldn't be a limitation...? Is this situation common?

 

Actually, thinking about it, an always on regen would probably be more of an advantage. Maybe using a trigger: when Body is done, may be more appropriate?

 

I'd also agree that distinctive features might not be a bad way to go. If people are freaked out by wounds closing in front of them, that can simulate that.

If it wasn't Always on, I could just have said: "ok, I don't regenerate until he does not see me anymore. I'll bleed a bit, but I'll survive." But what happened was that I regenerated while I was still being watched. Therefore it was a disadvantage/limitation that I could not turn off the power. And that is exaclty the reason why this is not so clear-cut. The situations where it is a limitation that you cannot shut off your regeneration are really, really rare. In fact, that is probably the only situation where it matters.

Re: Analysis: Deconstruction of NND/AVLD

You could have used one post instead of five, this makes it very weird to read...

You are missing:

- Any amount of defense disables attack. (NND)

- Defense reduces attack relative to strength. (AVLD)

Re: Is it Flash or is it me?

Once Persistent powers are turned on' date=' they stay on until turned off. And I view Regen as typically being always on, but not meriting a limitation for it because there's not much in the way of a drawback. In some games, a limitation is awarded.[/quote']

 

"So, you are a strictly normal human, who just coincidently walked into this town and you have nothing to hide?"

"That's right!"

"And you are sure that your very unusual eye colour is just a albino variant?"

"That's right!!"

"Frankly, I don't quite believe you. Luckily, I am good with knives and getting information out of people."

Thinks: yeah, go on, torture me, it's not like that won't heal in a couple minutes. I can bear the pain. Wait. Couple minutes?

"So then, why are your wounds closing under my very eyes? Guards, lead him into the cellars!"

 

And this has entirely happened to one of my characters. I insist that Regen is entiteled to Always On!!!

Re: Is it Flash or is it me?

Wait a moment, you are serious on this? But that's totally ridiculous?! Why should a Persistent Power cost less than a Constant Power?

5ER has just taken a huge hit for me. It's time for 6th. Let's hope steve finally fixes the glaring problems (KA, strength, figureds, THIS ONE!)

Re: Is it Flash or is it me?

Eh, you cannot really put Persistent and Always On on an Instant Power, it would have to be Constant first. You'd rather use a Trigger, or just apply it as-is. After all, while you are flashed, you can still target yourself without any trouble. ... Which would still require GM permission since you would have to dispell the Flash not off yourself, but off your enemy. Dispell is weird sometimes. The official way to do this is Healing I believe.

Re: Brooklin Rage! (part 2)

That game is actually not so much "Low Powered Fantasy", but rather "High Powered Cyberpunk" We're talking 200+100 cp characters, weapons either bought with points or as resource pool. But thanks for the input.

Re: Brooklin Rage! (part 2)

Interesting that you put the "drop to -9 stun" as a Disadvantage. Some of my tries:

I Think I'm Going To Be Sick

Extreme Side Effect (-1), worth about 60 AP, that's 12d6 stun only self-damage,

Always occurs (x2), Side Effect when power ends (-1/4)

That either is a -1.5 or a -1.75, I'm not sure how that is officially calculated. Help please.

I like Damage Reduction, although: Why should that not work against Energy Attacks or Ego Attacks? And why not just by 30 Stun for the same points? (Or hell, even defenses or CON), that's probably a lot more point-efficient.

I would also like if it weren't characteristics, because that leaves us with lots of chaos with figureds (and "no figureds" for -1/2 is a horrible thing to do with CON/STR) while at the same time breaking nearly all campaign limits.

Things I played around with:

- Ablative Armor (the first couple hits you just shrug off, but then blood loss starts to accumulate), or Ablative unusual defenses, eg. 5 points of Flash defense, making the first flash nearly worthless.

- The 0END NPA from above. 0END is pretty neat when you can Sweep for a lot of damage.

- Obviously Enraged. But that again is not "fun to use". As soon as it triggers, you become half-zombie in terms of choices you have. For a player who likes to have tactical choices, that's pretty boring. Especially if powers are linked to this (btw: how to price? If you rarely berserk, that's pretty hefty, but OTOH, you *want* to berserk), you have a choice of having a choice or being powerful but NPC. Bleh.

Most important: I'm fishing for something cool. "+20 STR" is just very, very bland

After having asked why one should use Absorb at all, here my new dilemma for the same problem:

One of my players wants to have a "Barbarian Rage" ability. But somehow, I have trouble finding a good interpretation of that. And I really mean: "I have no clue about the game effects." I'm pretty sure if I had a good game effect I could model it rules wise, but currently, I cannot find anything interesting to begin with. Sure, I could use Absorb to increase the damage of his primary Attack (à la Deadly Blow), but that is neither interesting to play with not easy to balance, since the attack will probably near worthless to start with, and/or end up way too big, and/or it won't matter at all (going from 11 DC to 12 DC? Hardly noticable).

What I have already set down:

About 25 Strength, a big weapon bought with money (or rather: DC resource pool), plus a multipower which sports some funny attacks, like a linked Drain Running (Hamstring), or a linked bleeding attack, or a NPA area of effect or an NPA Autofire (possibly big enough to use them at the same time?).

I have toyed with the following (stolen from another thread, but my own write-up):

Rage!

Naked Power Advantage: No Endurance Cost (+1/2) for up to 120 Active Points. 60 AP

Charges: One continuing charges, lasting 1 minute recovers every five minutes (4 steps on time chart) (-0) (or anything along these lines)

Major Side Effect, 30 AP: 1d6 KA, Does Body (+1), fixed stun multiplier (-0), Always occurs (-1)

Active Point: 60, real cost: 30

Mainly, that just seems a bit to unimportant. Sure, it gives you free END, but does that help me much? It would be a lot more fun to have this on multiple levels (like rage I, rage II, rage III) and getting stronger every time or some such. Note that just putting this into the mentioned framework makes it incredibly complex and saves about 3 points total and is so not worth it (it's not even worth doing the math for).

Re: Adaptive Invisibility

Well, it's not cosmic, since the powers which you can chose from in your VPP are far from all (only one power). See the book for that

Re: How To Do This?

Take a ranged attack which can also be fired into melee?

Re: How To Do This?

I would go with autofire, because that's so damn easy to use for this. And it's also only +1/4th (points don't matter I suppose).

Re: Pain resistance?

In most settings, PD+ED work a lot better than DR. Because DR is basically additional Stun for a high price. You end up with crazy prices compared to what you get in a non-super-setting.

Re: Fringe on Invisibility

Adders still cost END regardless of being used or not. 5" Flight' date=' x32 NCM (30 AP) Costs 3 END to fly 5" at combat speed, or 3 END to fly 160" at Non-Combat speed, or 3 END to Hover In Place. Personally, I think this is one of the things that needs to change with 6th edition.[/quote']

 

I definitely agree on this. Would you be so kind as to point that out in the appropriate forums in behalf of me too?

Re: Help with the Regeneration Power?

You could also put the "reduced time of re-use" advantage on it, which would actually make sense! After all, that stupid thing exists for only that reason and is explicitly mentioned on the same page (or so)! That makes Regen a couple points more pricey, but it's still the same ballpark, around 10 per 1 point. That is the more sensible approach...

Re: Mindscaping

If you want a skill contest, or at least a roll contest: How about going the ECV route instead of Effect Roll? You could also buy EGO to "break out", ideally with IPE.