Blackberry

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? Straightforward martial artists have always been just something that doesn't click for me.

Re: Perks and negative cost If it's slightly useful and slightly problematic, it should be 0 points. So just write it down and call it a plot point.

Re: Perks and negative cost Tesuji, this is the GURPS problem again -- or why I don't like GURPS cost structure. It tells you nothing about how powerful the character is. If I build Destructi, with 100 base points spent on skills and characteristics, and I give him enough RKA AoE to obliterate the planet in one phase (say for 500 points), and then I say that he's really depressed and what not, 500 points worth, you would tell me that this is a 100 point character and a good match for a professional journalist with some karate training, who spent his 100 base points and 0 on Disads. The HERO equation is set up exactly the way it is, and has been functioning just fine for thousands of people and thousands of campaigns for 25+ years, because Destructi is quite a bit more effective at what he does than Journalisti. The formula is not just an arbitrary rule. And the main reason it hasn't changed for 25 years is not inertia -- it's because it does the job as well as any formula could do. There are very clear reasons in this thread why Disads are not subtractions. It's all about the double entry system. Ask your bookkeeper why you can't just subtract from one side and still expect stability. That said, can you do it in your game? Sure. Be awesome. But you are very likely to get odd results out of the point value system. And if you font care about point balance in the first place, why do you care what number goes with a base at all? Just write "crappy base, gm says ok" and move on.

Re: Perks and negative cost I have no problem with a DNPC-style base that turns out to be more of a liability than a bonus -- I've lived in places like that. I just don't see the benefit -- and I see problems -- with not treating it as a Disadvantage and instead countermanding the normal point balancing function. I kind of think that selling back a figured characteristic is a true detriment, since you never have access to that, whereas with a crappy base, at least you still have the shelter and facilities. If it was Crappy 11-, and the GM never rolled 11 or less, you have a fully functioning base. Whereas if you sold back STUN, no amount of rolling will make that available.

Re: How to Start? I don't think there's any way you can go wrong with 5ed Sidekick. You can even play full campaigns with it, if you decide it's enough for you.

Re: Perks and negative cost It's possible I'm just boneheaded now and distracted by work. I'll take a look at it later.

Re: Perks and negative cost Disadvantages shouldn't subtract from the cost of a base because they don't subtract from the cost of anything else, so why should bases be an exclusive case? If I apply the rule across the board, then I could build my powered armor as a vehicle, and instead of making it bulky with a Limitation, I give it a Phys Lim disad, Distinctive Features, a Watched or two... And now, counting tesuji's way, it costs me negative points. If I build a second suit of armor, I get even more points back. The more suits I buy, the more points I get. So I just buy infinite armor suits and I am now god of the universe. Subtracting disads is also a bad idea because it lets the GM do it. I could give my mastermind villain a 500 point base, making the Earth his posession and everyone on it his loyal follower, then give the base a 500 point Villain Base Bonus, and now it costs him 0 points by tesuji's reckoning. g

Re: Aid as a weapon The copycat VPP is a really cool idea too. Thanks! But it wouldn't necessarily suppress the target's control over their own powers. Linked Drain on whichever power the VPP makes wacky would do it.

Re: Aid as a weapon

Re: Perks and negative cost That is not what I meant at all. If you were around here about 10 years ago, you might remember Hitesh/C++, pushing his Hybrid roleplaying game system. You can still find it on the web, I think, though there's now a board game out called Hybrid that gets confused with it. Whenever we said "Base points", meaning the initial points, he always thought we meant "base points", i.e. the cost of a living facility. I don't want to be making such a simple error here. There is a huge difference. No, you don't. You have a base that is worth (Base points / 5) to the owner. Disadvantages never enter into that equation. Disadvantages give the *base* more points, not the owner. If the base you purchase has 10 Base points and 6 points of Disads, equaling your 16 Character points of goodies, then it is a legal build and it costs the owner 2 Character points. If you purchase a base with 10 Base points and 100 points of Disads, but only 16 Character points of goodies, you did something drastically wrong. Let me repeat this for the tenth time: the equation is not an assignment. It's not an instruction to you to do anything. It is a balance. Both sides must be equal. X = Base points + Disadvantage points + Experience spent Y = Total Character points X must = Y. Period. Except for selling back a Characteristic below its base value, there are no negative points and no subtractions. With that one exception, there is literally no way for a negative number to even enter the system. It doesn't matter how many Disadvantages your base has, it's not worth negative points. It may not be worth your trouble, but Character points don't necessarily equate directly to trouble points.

Re: Aid as a weapon And would it require buying Range twice -- once to make the subject of the Transfer ranged, and one to make the object of the Transfer ranged, since I think that's usually self only?

Re: Think Tank The VPP and EC don't stack, even if he VPPs himself "Aid Force Field"? Is that in FRED? He will ask, and I don't have FRED with me at work.

Re: Aid as a weapon I adore the Transfer END to Powers idea. I've been playing HERO for 20 years and never considered a Transfer where the user of the Transfer is not the recipient. Would you consider that a -0 Limitation if he can't be the Transfer beneficiary?

Re: Think Tank Good point, though he doesn't actually have Required Skill Roll on his VPP control. They are dependable powers. I guess I'm trying to figure out... If he has the telekinetic power to launch himself at better than Mach 10 from a standstill, he should gave the telekinetic power to level a city block.

I'm trying to help one of my players with a character concept. Here is his initial proposal: http://www.RainGamers.org/wiki/index.php/HERO:Think_Tank He is a telekinetic with the ability to create a TK "tank" around himself. Over the years, he has been expanding his power to new and creative uses, represented by the VPP. It's labeled "psychic powers" but it's really just more of his telekinetic powers. Nothing in this actually breaks a rule, as far as I can tell, but he's using two frameworks for two aspects of the same power, which is irking me. If he just added some new slots to his EC, with RSR or the like on them, he loses the flexibility of being able to do anything he can imagine. If he just goes with the VPP, he loses the dependability of his core applications. How would you handle it?

I'm building a villain with generic manipulation powers. One thing he can do is affect mutants quite dramatically: he could disable a certain power in their gene sequence. He can also mutate them further and cause radical things to happen with their powers -- turn up one of their powers to a point where they lose control of it. Aid to any one mutant power the target has is clear, but how to add Uncontrolled to it? Mind Control based on CON? Transform from a mutant in control of their powers to a mutant not in control of their powers? VPP only to build powers fitting a target's mutant abilities, only to build powers Usable As Attack, only usable on mutants (which the villain is not)?

Re: Perks and negative cost Tesuji, are you simply confusing "base points" with "Base points", like Hitesh/C++ used to do? Disadvantages are not negative points and have never been. If you thnk they should be when you run HERO, go ahead, but you may get odd results. The base (location) is worth the Base (initial) points regardless of ANYTHING ELSE. Disadvantages purchased for the base offset any further benefits purchased on the other side of the equation. Remember, it's extremely important: the equation is not a statement of assignment; it's a balance sheet. You can't just adjust one side. Both sides must balance, or you did something wrong.

Re: Perks and negative cost I guess if you were in my campaign and you insisted that you would burn my house down unless I let you have this thing with negative Base points and no positive qualities, I would treat it as a DNPC: - if a DNPC is a benefit overall, it's a Contact or Follower; - if it's a detriment overall, it's a DNPC Disad. I would rule the same for the hypothetical broken bicycle. You can't seem to get away from this thing. You always (or however often the roll is) seem to be stuck in a situation where you must turn to the old broken bicycle. Is that a fair way to handle this "negative Base points" thing?

Re: Perks and negative cost Why would you set the Base points of anything to less than zero? That doesn't even make any sense. What are you trying to model? Owning a bicycle in disrepair? Interesting concept, but not really superheroic, unless the bicycle also does something special like launch the rider into another dimension when the bell is rung. And if that's the case, then it has a positive ability which must be offset via either investment from the owner or by giving it Disads. And if it's not a superheroic campaign, why are you paying points for a broken bicycle in the first place?

Re: Perks and negative cost Build 1: Base with Gun: 10d6 Energy Blast. Disadvantage: Hunted by Mechanon, 11-. Build 2: Base with Gun: 10d6 Energy Blast. Disadvantages: None. Build 1 has a Disadvantage. Build 2 has no Disadvantage. Thus, one has a Disadvantage while the other has none. This is from your example of two base builds, both with a gun, one with a Disadvantage and one without. Yes? Then I misunderstood. If both bases were worth, say, 5 points, each held a gun worth 10 points, and each had a Disadvantage worth 20 points, each one would cost the owner the same amount. In my campaign, if you build a base, and the base has Disadvantages, I will make sure that they are disadvantageous to you, the owner and presumably occupant of the base, and disadvantageous to the base equal to their Disadvantage value. Sorry, but I don't treat a base as a sink for throwing in Disads that then get ignored. There is no negative and no exception. I and others have told you this on both forums now several times, and you simply ignore it. Disadvantages are not negative points. Let's say I build a base. I spend 5 points on making it big enough and giving it some cool stuff. My base currently has 5 Base points (base as in "starting level", not as in "headquarters") + 0 Disadvantage points + 0 Experience spent = 5 Total points that I can spend on stuff, which I have. If I want to stop there, I pay (5 / 5) = 1 character point for owning the base. If I want a base with 50 points worth of cool stuff, I would either pay 10 character points for it (50 / 5 = 10), giving it this formula: 50 Base points + 0 Disadvantage points + 0 Experience spent = 50 Total points that I can spend on stuff. ...or I would have to come up with Disadvantages to give the base for all the points I didn't want to spend on it. Let's say I want to keep the original 5 Base points and come up with 100 points of Disadvantages. Now my formula looks like this: 5 Base points + 100 Disadvantage points + 0 Experience spent = 105 Total points that I can spend on stuff. It doesn't lower the cost of the base. It adds to the left side of the formula so that it can balance out the right side of the formula. I think you may be confusing HERO with GURPS. My GURPS 3rd edition rulebook walked off, but I seem to recall that whatever they called Disadvantages were negative points, and this caused a problem with GURPS: - Create a character with 100 Base points - Give the character a 500 point power that can wish any single thing up to and including the entire planet out of existence with a thought - Give the character 400 points of Disadvantages The Disadvantages subtract from the points spent, making the character a 100 point character. If I then make a character with 100 Base points and an additional 5 points in a skill, and I take 5 points of Disadvantages, GURPS says my second character is equal in effectiveness to my first character. HERO says no; the first one is a 500 point character. The 400 points of Disadvantages are what pay for the difference between the Base Points and the Total points spent. Base + Disads = Total. There is no minus sign in that equation, and there are no HERO Disadvantages worth negative points. I've been playing HERO since the first edition of Champions, and there never have been Disadvantages worth negative points, and the formula has never been altered once in all that time. Could you point me at a page number where you found these negative Disadvantages?

Re: What defines Hero ID It depends. If their powers come from a suit of powered armor, then they are "in Hero ID" when wearing the armor. If their powers come from turning green and huge at unknown times, then they are "in Hero ID" when green and huge.

Re: Perks and negative cost The "cost" is "paid" by, for example, risking that Mechanon is looking for this gun and will grind you into paste if he finds you with it (ie Hunted). In exchange for paying the price of possibly being killed, you have the extra abilities of the gun with more total points of abilities. Owning the gun without the Disad doesn't give you the extra abilities, but it doesn't incur the extra problem of a supervillain on its trail. And as I said on RPGnet, you may want to revisit the equation Base points + Disads + Experience spent = Total points. Disads don't subtract.

Re: Perks and negative cost The gun in the second example is not free; it's offset with Disadvantages. If the Disadvantages taken are not actually disadvantageous, they should not be worth any offsetting points.

Re: Perks and negative cost I seem to recall that's roughly the way it worked in the Champions III days, when you paid for the net cost of the vehicle or base, rather than the base cost. Also, just spending the 5 positive points while taking 100 points of Disadvantages doesn't seem wise. If the Disads offset positive points spent, then the net is 0.

Re: What book was the character "Brick" from? Wasn't he originally in Enemies II?