Funk Thompson

"Ideation" generally means you think about suicide, but aren't actually planning it.  I have the same.  Those little moments of "I should just kill myself" when I've done something mildly to wildly stupid, or feeling down or whatever.

Walked out into my living room to "ANTHONY BOURDAIN COMMITS SUICIDE" plastered on the TV screen, literally my first cognitive moment of the day.

2 hours ago, tombrown803 said:

how about a multipower with constant (+1/2) attached to the reserve, not each slot individually? That way you could make your attack roll, hit, and then change what damage you want to do each phase. On phase 1 you hit them with slot 1, a blast. When that doesn't work, on your second phase switch to slot 2, the RKA.

 

I'm not sure that would be legal, and I would put the Constant modifier on the base attack (since the secondary / linked attack won't also go off each phase, only one slot will, whether chosen  by the attacker, or by the GM or at random or whatever.

Here is a quick and dirty on how I would do this:

• Blast 6 1/2d6, Constant (+1/2) (49 Active Points)
   

• Multipower, 50-point reserve,  (50 Active Points); all slots Linked (Blast; -1/4)

  • Blast 3 1/2d6, Indirect (Source Point is the same for every use, path is from Source Point to target; +1/4), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; Triggered when linked Blast Power hits.; +1) (49 Active Points); Linked (Blast; -1/4)

  • Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6, Indirect (Source Point is the same for every use, path is from Source Point to target; +1/4), No Range Modifier (+1/2), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; Triggered when linked Blast Power hits.; +1) (41 Active Points); Linked (Blast; -1/2)

The Blast is constant, the MP slots are triggered by the linked blast dealing it's damage.  The linked attacks are indirect (assuming they "originate at the target" and are not separate beams or bolts or whatever from the attacker) and attack with no range modifier.

If the linked secondary attack used is not chosen per-phase by the attacker, put on a private limitation to the MP that the attacker / user has limited (-1) or no conscious control (-2) on which power is activated.

14 hours ago, eepjr24 said:

For that type of super perception, I think full discriminatory would be part of it, but I would probably add rapid and analyze to go along with the copious amount of deduction and knowledge skills. 

 

I would say discriminatory would be able to tell the difference between 36 different eyes that are all "blue", by knowing the different shades, colors of flecks, patterns of fibers, etc that make each eye nearly unique.  Knowing which was associated with a genetic condition for me would be analyze. Rapid would be being able to glance at a page full of 100 pictures and instantly (in a single phase) pick out the ones you recognize. Deduction combined with analyze and KS could help you tell which ones were related, even if they did not know it themselves. 

 

- E

See, for me, knowing a genetic condition was indicated by eye color / pattern would require a KS skill, but perhaps "Fully Discriminatory" would allow you to more easily notice such in relation to your KS.

Sense Modifiers affect how much information that sense gives you; you still need appropriate knowledge or skills to do anything with some of that gleaned information.

To Moscow I came seeking fortune
But they’re making me work til I’m dead
The bourgeoisie have it so easy
The Tsar’s putting gold on his bread
The people of Moscow are hungry
But think what a feast there could be
If we could create a socialist state
That cared for the people like me: 

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That descend upon me from up above.
They come down and I spin them around
Til they fit in the ground like hand in glove.
Sometimes it seems that to move blocks is fine
And the lines will be formed as they fall -
Then I see that I have misjudged it!
I should not have nudged it after all.
Can I have a long one please?
Why must these infernal blocks tease?

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
Come Muscovite! Let the workers unite!
A collective regime of peace and love.
I work so hard in arranging the blocks
But the landlord and taxman bleed me dry
But the workers will rise! We will not compromise
For we know that the old regime must die.
Long live Lenin, kill the tsar!
We salute the sickle and star!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
The food on your plate now belongs to the state
A collective regime of peace and love.
I have no choice in arranging the blocks
Under Bolshevik rule, what they say goes.
The rule of the game is we all are the same
And my blocks must create unbroken rows.
Long live Stalin! He loves you!
Sing these words, or you know what he’ll do...

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are made by the men in Kazakhstan.
They come two weeks late and they don’t tessellate
But we’re working to Stalin’s five year plan.
I am the man who arranges the tanks
That will make all the Nazis keep away
The Fuhrer is dead, and Europe is Red!
Let us point all our guns at the USA.
We shall live forever more!
We can start a nuclear war!

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That are building a highly secret base.
Hip hip hurrah for the USSR! 
We are sending our men to outer space.
I work so hard in arranging the blocks
But each night I go home to my wife in tears -
What’s the point of it all, when you’re building a wall
And in front of your eyes it disappears?
Pointless work for pointless pay
This is one game I shall not play.

I am the man who arranges the blocks!
But tomorrow I think I’ll stay in bed.
The winter is cold, I’ve got plenty of gold
And I’m standing in line for a loaf of bread
Maybe we’d be better off
If we brought down Gorbachev

I am the man who arranges the blocks
That continue to fall from up above.
The markets are free! So much money for me!
Tell me, why should I care for peace and love?
The markets are free! So much money for me!
Tell me, why should I care for peace and love?
Peace and love, peace and love!

And now the wall is down, the Marxists frown
There’s foreign shops all over town
When in Red Square, well don’t despair
There’s Levi’s and McDonald’s there
The US gave us crystal meth
And Yeltsin drank himself to death
But now that Putin’s put the boot in,
Who’ll get in our way?

So we reject free enterprise
And once again the left will rise.
Prepare the flags to be unfurled
For we’re seceding from the world:
We shall regain the Georgian soil
We shall obtain the Arctic oil
We shall arrange the blocks and toil
Forever and a day.

Game over.

-----

Pig With the Face of a Boy - "Complete History Of The Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

A Series of Unfortunate Events - just re-watched over the last few weeks with the gal that comes over to help with the girlfriend's daughters.  She's as much of a book-nerd as my girlfriend, and hadn't seen it but had read some of the Lemony Snicket books when she was younger.

Absolutely brilliant show.

3 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

We have our share of economic and social conservatives on these forums, which is fair. But we're thankfully short on people who are willfully ignorant enough to overlook some of the more egregious developments.

Oh, sure, it isn't like all conservatives support him and all liberals don't; though the number of liberals supporting this is likely single-digit.

I'm on many forums with tons of conservatives or libertarians or right-leaning independents who hate what they see happening just as much as I do.

But on most every other forum I frequent, there are at least a handful defending and praising his every move.  

I have to say, after a time away, and I could be wrong...  but it is so very refreshing to find that the political thread here on HEROGames.com seems...  almost completely devoid of anyone defending the current moving train wreck we find ourselves "led" by.

I wore my boots out walkin'
Poured my heart out talkin'
I felt the pain & I broke the chain
But I still got a long way to go

Been on the road till tomorrow
Been through the joys & the sorrows
Came through the flood 
& I pulled through the mud
But I still got a long way to go

Been in the back-room dealin'
Been on a long hook reelin'
Crashed in the shed
& I woke in a sunny bed
& I still got a long way to go

Been on the rails & big muddy
I've crossed the trails rocky & rutted

Been down the road a million miles
But I still got a long way to go

I've traveled near & traveled far
I beat a hole in my guitar
Crawled with the zeroes
& I stood with my heroes
& I still got a long way to go

Been in the rain & on the run
I worked a long day in the sun
I slopped the pails
& I beat the nails
But I still got a long way to go

I tried the a verse as the be verse
I took the see verse to the chorus
Rewrote & changed it 
Then rearranged it
& I still got a long way to go

I lost my way in darkest night
I woke again & saw the light
Opened the book & I . . took a look
But I still got a long way to go

Tell me what . . . what is the soul of a man?
He's got to reach up his hand
Tell me what . . . what is the soul of a man?
He's got to reach out his hand
& I still got a long way to go
Still got a long way to go
Still got a long way to go

-----

Railroad Earth - "Long Way to Go"

We were shootin' at a mound of dirt.
Well nothing was broken, nothing was hurt.
But I probably really should have been at work.
But if my free time's gone, would you promise me this?

That you will please bury me with it?
Please bury me with it!

Well sure as planets come, I know that they end.
And if I'm here when that happens, will you promise me this my friend?

Please bury me with it!
I just don't need none of that Mad Max bullshit.

Well the suit got tight and it split at the seams.
But I kept it out of habit and I kept it really clean.
But if it's getting' faded, if it's runnin' outta thread,
Could you just do this for me my friend?

And please just please bury me with it?
Please bury me with it!

Well we moved to the left and moved to the right.
And sure as hell we stayed out almost every single night.
But if the party's over, if the fun has to end,
could you do this for me my friend?

Would you just please bury me with it?
Please bury me with it!

Good news for people who love bad news.
We've lost the plot and we just can't choose.
We are hummingbirds who are just not willing to move.
And there's good news for people who love bad news.
We are hummingbirds who've lost the plot and we will not move.
We have good news for anyone who loves bad news.

We were aiming for the moon. We were shooting at the stars.
But the kids were just shooting at the busses and the cars.
So don't drink the water, don't you breathe the air.
If it's gotten to that point then I have to declare:

That you please bury me with it!
Please bury me with it!

Well fads they come and fads they go.
And God I love that rock and roll!
Well the point was fast but it was too blunt to miss.
Life handed us a paycheck, we said, "We worked harder than this!"

Please bury me with it!
Please bury me with it!

We are hummingbirds who are just not going to move.
And there's good news for people who love bad news.
We are hummingbirds who've lost the plot and we well not move.
We have great news for anyone who loves bad news.

Modest Mouse - "Bury Me With It."

55 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

In that case those falcons should be clockwork robots that let him fly by lifting him from the shoulders.

I mean, that's an option, but just a WWI-equiped falconer would work very well in my setting

Is this for an actual "Jedi"?

If so, you probably already have TK, and this would just be another related slot / linked to TK / a "power trick" using TK.

I'd still build it as an extra limb, just pointing out that you can also just use TK to do what you describe.

Death Tribble has a debilitating phobia of sweater vests.  (Infrequent, Total.)

I want to stat that character for the latter era of my Steampunk setting

Right, and again while I follow the doubling cost rule (for all but "only restores to starting value"), I also won't allow high amounts of aid.  You can't break campaign CV or DEF limits with it, and I think I limited healing to the regeneration option at 1 BODY per day, tops - I like to limit healing in my game to avoid the "I've got a lot of hit points, and the cleric will heal me.  Damn the torpedoes!" gameplay of most RPG's.

Most of the buff spells were more +1 OCV AOE, +2 PD/ED AOE, etc - characterisitcs or powers usable by others as opposed to aids.

I....  also don't like dealing with fade rates, at all.  So I usually stuck on a reduced fade rate or whatever, 5 points per minute or per 5 minutes, to avoid constant bookkeeping during the combat.  And that makes drains ever more nasty, so those were usually pretty small as well.

Yup, and Haymaker goes off at the start of the following segment, but not really 'during that segment' so far as their action goes.  Character Y in your example used his action on Phase 4, and can abort on Phase 5.

Character Y could even do so if he had started a longer action during phase 4, but the ongoing action (whatever it might be) would be cancelled / aborted.

Discriminatory / Analyze are a bit confusing.

I would say, for instance, that Ndreare's example would be analyze, not descrim.

They do list some examples in the book, saying on Sight sense:

Quote

The Discriminatory effect provided by the Sight
Group is not the full Discriminatory obtained
by buying that Sense Modifier, but rather an
effect of somewhat cruder degree. For example, a
character can tell two people apart based on their
visual appearance, but cannot always determine
a person’s ethnicity or religion through Sight.
Characters can make Normal Sight (or the entire
Sight Sense Group) fully Discriminatory by paying
the usual cost.

It's still a judgement call on exactly how discriminatory vs. analyze functions for any given situation.

Summon has options for "Expanded Class(es) of Beings" 

You could do this with a single summon power with the above advantage, or with a multipower of different summons options for each critter summoned.  

Most likely, some of these critters will be more powerful than others.  So either the smaller cards just don't use all of the summon's max power, or again you have separate, smaller slots in the MP for those.

It's a fair point, not a whine.

I'd still prefer just limiting the total dice / AP of aid/drain/transfer allowed when it applies against one of the problematic defense powers / characteristics, to having to do the math differently for those.

4 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Balance in this (and most games) are an ideal but isn’ automatically there. You can build a legal character even avoiding GM permission powers and still be overly effective. My most abusive character had Desolid 0 END plus I bought LS need not breathe when he was Desolid. And I also bought Affects real world.  Anybody that has a decent EGo Attack in a game where nobody else has Mental Defense is also brutal. In Hero, the points don’t tell the whole story.

Well, HERO's advantage there is that you - the GM - can set / fix that balance yourself.

Trying to re-balance classes in D20, for instance...  can be done if you like setting up your own house-rules, but the system itself doesn't support such modifications, and there is no internal consistency to the math of things like there is in HERO.

Sure, but Indirect does not necessarily mean there isn't a physical manifestation "crossing intervening space."  Technically, you can use either/or - or both  - "Does not cross intervening space" does not confer any other advantages of indirect, and indirect doesn't automatically infer that there is no physical manifestation.

There is no "wrong way to do it" so long as the modifiers all equate out to it doing the intended effect.  And TK already has many of those assumptions "baked in."

Just my take, naturally.

"Does not cross intervening space" is a legal option for stretching.

Again, TK is more or less STR with Ranged and "Does not cross intervening space", and stretching is just STR with Ranged modifier when you look under the hood.

2 minutes ago, Cassandra said:

 

A Brick with Stretching would be more effective.

Sure, but again, stretching and TK have several differences.  You'd need to add on something to represent that their physical form is not stretching.

And, again, TK is already basically STR with the Range advantage under the hood.

Quote

Multiform (250 Character Points in the most expensive form), Variable Form(s) (+1) (100 Active Points); Costs Endurance (Only To Change; -1/2), Extra Time (Delayed Phase, Only to Activate, -1/4)

Quick and dirty, 57 points for a 250 point character.  

Problem with this route is having to build the forms as they use them, for which I would require they had already built said form before attempting to use in play.

Problem:   Transform is an attack.  You generally do not want to build a power that affects the user using transform.

It may be "more efficient" or whatever, but you generally cannot or do not want to allow attack powers that target the user with beneficial effects.

Your shapeshift is ridiculously expensive due to it being vs. so many senses and having so many adders, and having the 0 END Cost.  Apply those same things to the transform and the cost goes up accordingly (but would still ultimately be cheaper; probably 60 AP vs. the 80 or so.)

That said, yes, shapeshift is a very wonky power to use and I usually just do multiform with a custom "variable form" +1 advantage.