Istaran

Re: Multiple Power Attacks: How much is too much? I think it still needs something for Linked. Linked attacks should be used together with no penalty, but if non-Linked powers cannot be used together without penalty that requires some re-costing of Linked.

Re: Can this be done x 2 For 1 cp he makes $100,000 per year. For 5 cp he's a millionare. Now he can buy a bigger house to hold the legions of random $500 or less items. Actually, Money itself is probably a bigger destroyer of believability in the game system than anything else. After all, shouldn't a multibillionare be able to just hire an army of extremely well equipped soldiers to take care of whatever problems arise? Yet having those billions of dollars doesn't automatically get you a 2d6 RKA (pistol) for free? WTF? What you can reasonably expect to do with the kind of money you get for 15 cp and what a sane GM will let you do in game with the kind of money you get for 15 cp are two radically different things. After all, the GM has to try and make that 15 cp worth of money in practice about equally valuable with a bit of super strength (+15 to be precise), or for that matter a pistol (2d6 RKA, OAF). In practice it does nifty story effect things, but doesn't become a replacement for other things you pay CP for. Also, amusingly, your 'packrat' idea, if you took away the option to violently drop things on your opponent, seems to basically be the same effect as a Bag of Holding; you have an unreasonably large inventory of items on hand (items which you could otherwise have in your possession anyways). Anyone want to take a stab on what THAT should cost?

Re: Can this be done x 2 It is unbounded in that you are not willing to accept any given finite list and say "yep, that is the complete list." You did, after all, bet that any list we gave you you could find something not on the list to add.

Re: Can this be done x 2 Hero system does not handle unbounded versatility without a VPP. If you want to have the power "I want to make up a power on the spot (that fits my SFX) and have that power, without fail, without requiring GM generocity as something that is a defined part of my power" that's called a VPP. Power skill can be made to fit the bill if need be. By the way, this whole conversation exemplifies why Hero does not have external teleport (you teleport something without going with it) as a native part of the system, and requires you to use a Stop Sign Advantage to get it. The blanket ability "I can teleport things" does a lot of mechanical effects off of one SFX. Hero wants you to pay for your mechanical effects (and largely doesn't care about your SFX). It's impossible to try and balance SFX. Points don't do that. It's possible to balance mechanical effects. Points do that. Versatility has a cost: multipower and VPP assess that cost. If you want to have an unbounded set of diversely useful objects you can call to you (any object I can convince my GM I OBVIOUSLY had in my house, despite never having given any indication of it previously; I mean, why should I have to declare what things are in my pocket, err, I mean house before whipping them out in combat?) then you want the construct in the game that gives an unbounded set of diversely useful options: VPP. If you want to have a predefined set of diversely useful options, that can be an MP. VPP is I have unboundedly diverse choices on the fly, MP is I predefine my choices. This isn't a weakness of Hero system. For a weakness of Hero system see STR, DEX, and maybe HA.

Re: Can this be done x 2 The way I purchased my Shape Shift SFX based powers is with a MP (in all fairness, my GM doesn't allow VPPs. So I work with what I've got). If I were doing the Teleport Stuff From My House it would be the same way. VPP: I can do anything my SFX can justify (within a point cap) Wee! MP: I can pre-plan any option my SFX can justify (paying points in the process) and be able to use those options conveniently. lowercase wee! As it is my shapeshifter can grow claws, they just don't do anything different than punch! After all, I can have Any Shape. I paid for that. But for some reason I can't Stretch out an extra 1" when I'm Shrunk to 1/2 dimensions. Give me some time (XP) and I'll get that down too. And maybe figure out how to make a KA claws.. (Want to make it harder for your brain? I have Shapeshift and an associated MP... AND Multiform. So I can change into my draconic alter ego and have deadly claws, a breath weapon, etc that I can't do when I can shapeshift into 'any form'. Someday I may be able to unify the two character sheets into a single versatile shapeshifting draconic thingy of doom.. but that's many many points from now.) Anyways, my point was that the broad mechanical effects of 'I can call to me any thing that happens to be in my house' is simply unboundedly versatile. You have clearly defined it as such, and made clear that to you the idea of a thing being in your house and unable to be called to you is unacceptable. That is a text-book example of something that should be a VPP. Just like the guy that can shapeshift into anything should have a VPP for physical advantages of the chosen form. If the teleporter needs to attune to specific objects to call them or the shapeshifter needs to practice to learn to form claws, shrink, grow, etc. specifically then MP works just fine.

Re: Can this be done x 2 Maybe the answer will be to work on building the characters you want (points be damned!) and figure out which character costs the most. Then give everyone that many points to pick up higher characteristics, scale up their powers, flesh out skills, etc. Maybe you'll end up in the 1000+ pt range because that's what it takes to realize one of the concepts.

Re: Can this be done x 2

Re: Can this be done x 2

Re: Can this be done x 2 I gave the example earlier of the character that could shape metal. It doesn't occur immediately that that is a ZOMG POWER! to most people. When you think of all the things that can be fit into that special effect it becomes more obvious. She gets in a fight with a knight in shining armor. So she reaches out a razor-thin tendril of metal from the metal she keeps on hand and touchs his armor: and turns it into an iron maiden! Insta-kill! Similarly with your Mr. I can TP Stuff From My House. Imagine what Batman could do with that power? Being a millionare only costs 5 cp! When the abusiveness of the power is limited to how far you want to go abusing it, it's not balanced. Built as a VPP, or better yet a MP (want to 'memorize' more things in your house so you can call them to you? That costs CP) it is restricted to keep you, as a character, in line with the other characters. You might be more versatile, but you're giving up raw power (by spending your CP on slot/control costs). Again, use Power Skill for one-off I do something nifty options, then buy them permanently as MP slots. If they're worth points. (As someone said above, don't pay points for a flashlight. ) Beyond that, perhaps be a little patient. I play a shapeshifter in my current Hero game. There's a few things I want to be able to do that are just going to have to wait on points (what, I can't make claws? Dang it!). There's a few things here and there the GM will probably let me get away with if need be (I can shape shift into 'any form' according to sight, touch, smell/taste, and hearing with imitation and makeover.. it's technically an incredibly pricey cosmetic change, but when someone pays that many points for something, a little leeway for imaginitive use here and there may be justified. I shouldn't have to buy "Transform (locked door into unlocked door)": if I can get a hold of the key for a moment, I can 'imitate' it with my finger perhaps?). Other things the GM has given me for free on a fleeting basis when he feels like it. (For story reasons, I have a reason why I 'should' be able to detect demons, which the GM gives me when he feels like it for moments at a time to taunt me and make me spend the points to have it reliably.) The fine art of GMing, especially in Hero, is balancing game balance against other concerns. Is it okay to have a character that can spontaneously summon things to him from home? Maybe? The problem is if you give this a blanket okay then you run into a problem where now you have to either take it away or deal with the consequences when the player puts a sherman tank in his garage. Is it okay for him to be summoning a sherman tank on demand? If he paid points for Vehicle (hey, that's one you can share costs between the party if you really want) then maybe it's okay? If he's making it appear mid-combat I would concider requiring a highly limited Teleport movement power on the vehicle itself to balance out.. if he's just pulling it in between scenes I'd think about how much better that is than needing to drive it from wherever it's parked. Enough to be worth points? Perhaps not. As for the question of whether everyone needs a VPP: if that's the kind of game you want to run, maybe you should make it a house-rule? Pick an AP limit, require a roll (I'd make it a fixed roll, maybe 12- -1 for each 10 AP or something, adjust to taste) and say that in your campaign if you can come up with an interesting 'Power' that isn't on your sheet but fits your SFX you can attempt it. Maybe that will go over well in your campaign? I expect it to be appreciated as a concept and rarely used, but that's just me. I don't know the people at your table.

Re: Can this be done x 2 I used to play a roleplaying 'game' where rules were: "You cannot do anything to another player's character, only attempt to do something to them. For example, you don't type 'I punch Istaran in the chin.', you type 'I swing a punch at Istaran's chin.' and then I type 'Istaran ducks under your swing.' or 'Istaran is sent sprawling.' etc." There really weren't more rules than that.. characters of the type you're describing are quite natural in such a system. You put some forethought into what types of SFX they can generate, and then creatively apply those SFX as you go. There's no way to judge a priori if two characters are roughly equal in power, you just kind of judge it from the results. One person came up with a character whose big SFX was she could reshape metal; if she's touching a piece of metal, she can change its shape quickly at will, and that affect carries through metal as long as its continuous contact from her to where she wants to produce a change. In her hands it was a mediocre and interesting power; when she left the game and let me keep her character as an NPC, it became much more obvious how insanely powerful that is. In general if you start with a broadly defined SFX and say "I can do anything this SFX justifies!" you get an insanely powerful character, especially by Hero standards. 1) You can see the sun. Maybe not, it has a continuous Flash going on.. but you can see the moon! So you can teleport anything you want out of people's hands onto the moon. The Teleporter is hit by a Mind Control and ordered to cause as much destruction as he can. So he teleports the moon on top of the city's largest building. Why did we think this was an okay power definition? 2) There's an incoming attack! The Teleporter teleports the Bank Vault door from his local bank into the way to block the shot! That ought to do it! He's fairly certain it's in the same place he saw it last. Now to retaliate, let's teleport my noisy neighbor's convertible on top of the bad-guy. After all, he's a night owl and so it should be parked in his driveway this time of day while he sleeps off his hangover. What, the baddy's strong enough that he's lifting it up off the ground? No problem, I'll just teleport a lit match into the gas tank. Good thing I have this Bank Vault door to shield me from the blast. Why did we think this was an okay power definition? 3) The Teleporter keeps a bag of caltrops in his room. Normal people might scatter them to make it hard to walk in an area. The Teleporter teleports them into his opponents' hearts. After all, he knows where the caltrops are and can imagine his opponent's hearts. Why did we think this was an okay power definition? If it hasn't occured to you yet, the powers as defined are not in line with a 300 pt Hero character. For that matter, number 1 as defined is not in line with a finite pt Hero character. (I rearrange the stars in the night sky to spell out "All your base are belong to us.") All of these need to be tightened down to more restrictive versions to work in Hero system. 1) I'm pretty sure this is just TP Usable as Attack (Limit it if you really don't want it to work on other characters), Ranged. I think there's a way to make the range limit based on LOS. However a) the distance the object travels in one teleport will be limited by the inches of teleport you buy (perhaps factoring in non-combat multiples? I'm not sure off hand how that works in UAA.). You may wish to multipower it to have different Megascale options etc. 2) I would pare this down to "he has a table that he is thoroughly familiar with and can keep stuff there. He can call stuff from the table to his hand, but it puts a temporary strain on him, and he has to release it back to the table to call another thing. It must be in hand to do so." Then, look at the examples in the book for Utility Belts. Basically, they are Multipowers where everything in the MP is either a OAF or OIF, and the overall Multipower is a OIF (Utility Belt). If someone takes the belt away, you lose the whole thing, and also you cannot swap out powers where the focus is currently out of your possession. Well, this sounds like a 'utility belt' where the 'belt' itself is not able to be taken away from you. So the Utility Table has no OIF on the pool cost, but you still have to put back the items you take off of it (by having them in hand and releasing them back to the table) before you can take out more things. In this case, SFX logic would allow you to make use of all the items if the fight takes place in your house, but would also allow a thief to steal your stuff off the table. (As a GM I would only do the thief thing if I saw you abusing the other part, like going to the table and grabbing a bunch of the items to bring with you and use more than the MP would allow.) 3) I think Power skill for the TP in #1 is likely enough. In general though this isn't D&D; you need to target based on spacial relations. In other words, if you want to teleport that match into the gas tank you either need to 'see' the gas tank with some targetting sense, or else you're making a guess based on your knowledge of the shape of cars and where you expect the gas tank to be relative to the parts of the car you do see, etc. Maybe on this model of car the gas tank is a few inches higher than you thought and the lit match appears within the liquid gas and goes out (no oxygen) before it can do any harm? For power tricks that you want to become more reliable with, you discuss the SFX with your GM and come down with a Power that has the right mechanics. Generally in either a MP or a VPP. In general, as I said, an unrestricted broadly defined SFX used to do anything the SFX can justify is just out of line with the concept of game balance. You and your fellow gamers need to decide if you want a game with game balance, where you need to nail down the limits of exactly what you can do within your SFX and price it out, or if you want to play a game where imagination runs wild and 'balance' is simply not a factor.

Re: Multiple Power Attacks: How much is too much? A few thoughts: 1) Linked powers: Linked is a limitation, not an advantage; so should Linked be the only way to get MPAs or at least non-penalized MPAs? It kind of feels that way a little bit to me, and I sense that I am not alone. But it seems to go against the design of Limitations(/Advantages). Maybe Linked on attack powers is a -0 and comes with No Penalties to Multiple Power Attacks with just these powers? It already is a way to bypass the MPA restriction on Power Frameworks. 2) Sweep vs MPA: Even giving the -2 for sweep and the full round time (perhaps eleviated by Rapid Attack skill or whatever it was called?) and 1/2 DCV.. MPA still comes out a bit ahead of Sweep/Rapid Fire on the fact that there's only 1 attack roll. (If not for the First Miss Ends the Attack Sequence (but you still pay for it all!) part of Sweep, I wouldn't call it a clear advantage for MPA.) Is that justified by the more restrictive nature of MPA? 3)END cost: There's only 3 attacks there (STR could be used to attack on its own, but isn't in this case as it would invalidate the CSLs). Also there's the part in the front of the book that says you pay for STR only once per phase, regardless of how many times you use it. The FAQ overrules this specifically for Autofire, but as far as I know it is not specifically overruled for Sweep or MPA, hence the question. It obviously should be though. Of course on the character in question, 7 points for 1/2 END on STR is a steal, and 15 points for 0 END on STR is tempting as well. 4) On points: Since none of these are in frameworks, they can leverage Limitations rather well, though the label I gave for the character is somewhat restrictive of choices. (A dragon with Focus for it's natural attacks? <_< IIF: Dracoform Amulet? Perhaps not too restrictive.) If such a character has diverse limitations, they may lose some but not all of their DC 12 attacks due to lims and still be quite dangerous. While we're at it, let's just see what a DC 36 character would be doing (spent 180 AP on one attack, instead of 30 on STR, 30 on Bite, 30 on Tail, 30 on Claws, and 60 on CSLs) Average STUN: 126 - PD, BODY 36 - PD. END: also 18. vs: The break even point on STUN based on these 'average' rolls is 22 PD. The 36d6 attack will be pretty solidly drawn toward the average by probability, and as I pointed out on another thread, the CSL user is better off taking Standard Effect at this point. If we're expecting 36 DC attacks to go flying around, 22 PD is obviously pretty low. And 72 PD/36 rPD will completely shut down the MPA user but only be 'about right' against the 36 DC straight attack. MPAs mostly seem to be hardly worth it (maybe cool for diverse effects but that's about it) except when you use STR and damaging CSLs, both of which get leveraged up by certain MPAs. Even then, it seems like you need a lot of buck for your bang. Maybe the only thing about them that even needs to be addressed balance-wise is how they are treated by campaign DC caps? If the tagalong attack is subject to PD or ED, it seems like such an MPA would be weak for the DCs (see above.) so it mostly works on an assumption that whatever exotic defense the tagalong targets is rare. Otherwise, I don't know... if everyone has average defenses of 2 PD/ED, 1 rPD/rED per average DC, then the first average DC/2 damage classes in an attack don't do much of anything. Maybe ignore those in the second attack when checking for DC limit? (i.e. if the limit is 12, two DC 9 attacks could be MPA'd together (9 + 9 - (12/2) = 12) or a DC 10 + DC 8 but not a pair of DC 12s?) (Again, it honestly seems like bypassing DC limits is the only real potential for imbalance here.)

Re: Rolling lots of D6s Shouldn't 12d6 Standard effect be 36? Oh, and pump 24 3pt levels into damage (superheroic rules) and get 72 STUN per hit, no rolling. Wee. Okay, extreme case, but as CSLs used for damage approaches 2xraw DCs, standard effect becomes increasingly valuable. Note that's raw DCs. 12 3pt levels can push a 6d6 to full 36 pts even if it's AOE (+1), or Armor Piercing + One Hex (+1), etc. The rest of the time though, you're right. And we all know how popular CSLs are.

If a game has DC/AP limits on attack powers, MPAs and potentially sweeps as well (maybe autofire too?) can conciderably exceed the typical damage output. So those of you with far more experience in Hero than I: have MPAs been an issue in your games? If not, why not? Is the point cost/END cost/etc. enough of an impediment to keep the damage down? Or do the GMs often put restrictions that keep too many damaging powers from combining? (It seems like combining drains/suppresses/flashes/etc with a single damaging attack might not be as bad.. but maybe it's really worse? If you peg someone with an Entangle + Suppress STR for example?) For that matter, in a game without DC/AP caps I can still see a possibility for pure damage MPAs to get nasty. Dragon: STR: 30 Bite: HKA 2d6 Claws: HKA 2d6 (reduced penetration) Tail: HA +6d6 MPA: costs 18 END or 12 END? Either way it does 3 hits for 12 DCs each off a single non-penalized attack roll. Now add 20 3pt levels (Bite, Claws, tail): against a dodgy target you will just plain hit; against an entangled target you add +30 STUN to the HA and +10 BODY (and the resulting STUN) to each of the HKAs. (okay, so all your above-average rolls get clipped, but that's part of the point.. ) It's also almost certain to do knockback (14 minimum BODY per HKA, with each fairly likely to do a full 24 BODY. Even 3d6 is unlikely to stop that from knocking back.. in fact 13-14" KB is to be expected!) Average roll damage: Bite: 24 BODY, 48 STUN (rolled a 3 on multiplier) Claws: 12 + 12 BODY, 72 STUN ( rolled a 4 on multiplier) Tail: 12 BODY, 72 STUN (rolled 3.5 per die, +30 from levels) = 60 BODY - PD - 3x rPD (might not kill, but it should be felt) = 192 STUN - 4x PD (and despite being broken up, it's quite likely to STUN as well). With the double-jeapardy STUN lotto, you can easily have a single hit for 120 STUN. So.. is this all as crazy as I think it is?

Re: DEX vs. CSLs I recently looked up the rules for CSLs adding damage to Sweeps/MPAs as well as Advantaged powers. I also confirmed with my DM that the campaign DC limit does not prevent me from adding damage with CSLs. (He says since it's a Superheroic game, and the bonus damage is limited to within what could have already been rolled it's okay.. but I'm quite certain a 12 DC attack and a 12 DC attack +15 STUN (max 72) do not have quite the same sting.) Enemies will really regret be Entangled around me. And when I target a DCV 0 hex to use my breath weapon, why not pump the damage?

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System And give the Duplicate a rather pricey Shape Shift, just so you can chose what it's an image of each time.

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System My suspicion is more a variation of #3: it was likely the player that made it balanced. Have you seen the movie Next? A character who is basically a skilled normal, if that, with a similar power tacked on is clearly a Super in his own right. If he uses it extensively and well he need not have any other powers. The limitations you put on it help keep it from going completely out of control, but really if it didn't feel crazy abusive it was probably because the player kept from abusing it. If you give a player Complete Invulnerability to All Harm, that is an inherently abusive power. If that player plays his character as a back-line character that stays out of the way, tries to avoid being targetted etc. it won't seem abusive in play. If that player does his best to draw all enemy fire to him, keeping the heat off his allies and such, the fact that he is Completely Invulnerable to All Harm will start to be obviously abusive. As rreay pointed out, there's a huge array of benefits you gain from being able to jump back in time even a small distance. When you think about what crazy amounts of points/powers would be needed by someone else to duplicate the effects using a different approach (IPEx2 on Interrogate?! Even that's being cheap about it. You probably ought to buy it as Telepathy, IPE, maybe standard effect and Limited (only activates if you would get the +20 to be undetected(is that a Lim or an advantage?))) (precog clairsentience is already pricey) and then add in the ability to turn a plot line into a plot pretzel.. as a GM you need to be picky who you let run around with this kind of craziness. A responsible player that you sat down with before hand and discussed it with might be able to handle it okay. But as a GM you also need to keep it in mind when plotting things. Why would an ambush ever work as such? The first second of the ambush the PC can jump back 10 or 20 seconds and warn his party so they go around or counter-ambush. You might even want to put in a few such things here and there that are designed for that player to thwart.

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System

Re: Rolling lots of D6s It depends what you mean by 'less random'? If you mean 'less likely to swing wildly from one extreme to another' then perhaps not. Basically, the more dice you roll, the more likely the result is to be close to the average and the less likely it is to be toward the extremes. For example, on 1d6, the average is 2 or less 2/6 times (0.333 probability), but on 3d6 the average is 2 or less 17/216 times (0.078 probability). As you get higher numbers of dice, the extremes become increasingly unlikely and the middle becomes increasingly likely. So taking a small number of dice and multiplying the result up makes it much more swingy. Taking a small number of dice and using standard effect for the rest actually makes it less 'random' though by any definition I can see using. Predictable as listed is basically the standard effect rule, which is a +0. You no longer risk rolling low (and maybe bouncing) but you no longer can roll high (and for many foes will lose the ability to Stun them). The second, Random, is clearly an advantage, as it replicates the effects of the STUN Lotto on killing attacks. You have a greater risk of your attack bouncing, but a much higher chance of Stunning someone or putting someone into 1 rec/minute or GM Option than your attack would normally possess.

If you use an 8pt All Combat CSL you can clearly apply it to DCV. You can also clearly apply it to DECV. The question is, when you chose to use the 8 pt CSL defensively, must you chose which defense to apply it to, or does it cover both DCV and DECV at the same time? (There doesn't seem to be a need to ask regarding OCV/OECV, or physical/mental damage classes since you can't MPA with physical and mental attacks together.)

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys? I also like the idea of a Nega-Wishmaster. He looks identicle to Wishmaster, except that he goes around suddenly being warped from perfectly good situations to horrifically bad ones. (The ones Wishmaster wishes he wasn't in.) Fortunately, he is very powerful with an uber-cosmic-VPP and can fix the problems. Some day he will meet Wishmaster in person. And when they do, 'Wishing' won't get Wishmaster out of that fight. (It will just transpose the two of them.) *evil hand rub*

Re: What costing for noncombat movement without penalty? Nice one. It conveniently also gets rid of the SPD (reaction time) being proportional to inches of movement per turn. (Now two people who pay for the same movement power move the same rate per phase.) Though I'd look at some way of pro-rating it so you can get more granularity.

Re: What costing for noncombat movement without penalty? Excellent plan. Even better, you can 'hit' them directly with Mental Illusions, dealing STUN and possibly even BODY (better yet, you get to decide every time if you want to deal BODY or not!) without even needing to throw anything. BTW, is it just me or is it only OCV/DCV that are penalized.. as in ECV is still at full. May be time to make a speedster/mentalist of high speed imaginary doom?

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys? Wish: Luck, Costs Endurance, Instant, Limited (Only to make a verbally requested effect occur), Extra Time (Full Phase), Incantations. GM assigns a number of 6s needed to achieve the stated wish as the GM thinks it is intended (You could alternately use pips or Normal Body Damage if desired). At the GMs descretion, a roll that fails to meet the required number may cause a distorted version of the wish to occur which meets the wording of the wish but obviously not the intention (note that this should be either a good thing or irrelevant; if the wish can go awry that is Side Effects). Otherwise, the wish may simply fail. Note that with this Wish build you can Push your Luck. The Limited limitation is almost certainly +0.

Re: Lance of Faith Of some minor relevance, +2 to an attack is not the same as -2 DCV in Hero. Because the -2 DCV would be halved or zeroed in various situations. When the target's DCV is 1/2d or 0d, your ally still has +2 to hit.

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others Might be worth looking at. Though I think a couple of the major shortfalls of tactics in Hero in my limited experience comes from the lack of positioning effects; you don't block space from your opponent's use (and if you did, flight and teleport are darn cheap ways to bypass that anyways), the lack of flank (there are other things which serve the purpose, but they're generally not very position dependant), no opportunity attacks (so you have no real 'zone of control' type effect in general) and the fact that out-of-turn actions burn up your turn (so no immediate interrupts/reactions without using up your standard turns.. except maybe complex constructs with triggered and such?) Could be a function of who I game with (but then again, most of them also play D&D. *shrug*) but my Hero games seem much less tactically oriented, as there's often little practical difference between being in one hex over another other than who you are in range to/how many range increments to your target. In D&D I find positioning a much more engaging element, as well as a lot more dynamic interractions between the PCs and such ("I marked him, so go ahead and provoke; if he dares take the swing, I get a free swing on him!"). I get other things out of my Hero games that keep me coming back week after week, but this part feels like it could be improved.