Talon

Re: Sweep, Multiple Power Attacks and Autofire

I don't cap sweep' date=' it's self-limiting. Sure you technically [i']can[/i] attack 850 people with sweep, but you aren't gonna hit more than 5 times anyway, no matter who you are.

You'll probably hit zero times...the first miss you roll means the rest miss, and unless your dice have only 1s on them you are pretty likely to miss.

Re: Sweep, Multiple Power Attacks and Autofire

How often would you allow characters to use sweep' date=' rapid fire, multiple power attack and/or autofire to increase their offense in a single phase?[/quote']

 

Sweep/Rapid Fire: more or less at will (the penalties make it fairly balanced). The real trick is to watch for Sweep PSLs.

 

MPA: At will, except I don't truck with multiple Maneuvers being used together.

 

Do you consider maneuver bonuses in determining whether a power violates the damage cap e.g. Haymaker?

 

I usually don't consider Haymaker, but I will look at other Maneuvers (Move By/Through, Offensive Strike, etc.) when considering damage caps.

 

Do you consider Area of Effect as adding to DC, because they tend to bypass high DCV character's primary defense?

 

Yes; in a 12DC game I would not allow a 12d6 AOE Energy Blast. However, a 6d6 AOE EB would likely be too weak, so I often allow something in the middle.

 

Do you consider high STR (30+) inherently AoE because of the ability to toss Volkswagons?

 

Nope, I would consider this incidental.

 

Do you allow characters with slower speed to have more single phase offense than faster characters?

 

Generally, yes (depends on other character details of course). It's not something I spell out in a formula.

Re: Appearance Shifting For Items

For a vehicle, I might require Shape Shift, as I can see a lot of uses for the ability.

For a coat or boots, that seems like the special effect of a bonus to Disguise.

If someone's concept just involved having boots that could change shape, I would probably just wave the SFX wand and be done with it. OTOH, if someone wanted their 300 pt. Uber-Focus to be able to change shape so they can hide it...that's when I start asking for a writeup.

Re: Anthropoids, prehensile feet, tail, & combat

 

Are you normally not allowed to buy CSLs with Sweep? Or are you suggesting those CSLs might be cheaper? I was still thinking about buying those, only because I don't know that the multiple opponents thing is going to happen often enough to make it worth it.

Well, there's the difference between the rules allowing you to buy something and the GM allowing you to buy it. I might not let a normal human buy 10 levels with Sweep "because I want to attack a lot!", but I would be more likely to let a PC buy those levels "because I have 10 arms".

Re: Anthropoids, prehensile feet, tail, & combat

The Extra Limbs power says that Extra Limbs are as functional as human hands by default, and that all hands but one are considered "off hands", and that Ambidexterity makes them all "good hands". That solves part of your question: buy Ambidexterity.

You are correct about Defense Maneuver letting you defend from all directions.

If you look under Two-Weapon Fighting, there's a discussion of what to do about Extra Limbs; basically, you want to buy Skill Levels to counteract the penalty for the Sweep maneuver.

You don't get extra attacks just because you have Extra Limbs; you can use the Sweep maneuver just like everyone else to make extra attacks. The difference is that the GM may let you buy levels with Sweep since making extra attacks should be easier for you.

(If it's a game where you can buy Powers to simulate combat abilities, you might consider getting an Autofire or Area of Effect attack of some sort to simulate hitting multiple times.)

Re: 6th Edition Hero System

I think there are huge reasons to do a 6th Edition. Recent RPGs (D&D 3rd edition in particular) really raised the bar in terms of ease of use. A lot could be done to improve aspects of Hero in this regard (WITHOUT significantly changing mechanics).

That said, I hope they wait a few years; I completely agree that redoing all the sourcebooks is the last thing I want to see.

Re: Ultimate Energy Projector: Any one have it yet?

I have the physical book and, well, it's not my favorite book of all time.

There are a /lot/ of "At the GM's option..." statements, to the point where I started to feel overwhelmed; how would I keep track of all these possible rules changes if I wanted to use this material in a game?

Secondly, there were some consistency issues (at least to me). The one that jumped out at me was under Force Wall. There's a section describing how Force Walls (even bubbles) are not moved by attacks or Knockback...immediately followed by a section on how bubbles can be picked up with STR or TK. This doesn't seem right to me.

On the good side, the list of special effects and their frequency was very nice and something I could see using in any supers game during character creation. Also, the "interaction of energy types" section, which makes up the bulk of the book, speaks for itself. I can't imagine using the full rules in an average game, but it's an interesting concept.

Re: A problem for missileers

I'm not sure I see the issue. The way you describe it, you have...

Multipower #1: OAF Special Bow, bunch of slots with 8 Charges each.

Multipower #2: OIF "any bow", bunch of tricks with no Charge Limit.

Ah, you are saying that he needs arrows from MP #1 to perform tricks in #2. (Just as a reminder, the "+2d6 RKA" can't /add/ to an RKA in MP#1, since you can't combine different slots in Frameworks like that.)

If the game is such that it's acceptable to pick up arrows at random (so that he's likely to have extra non-powered arrows as needed), then I'd call it part of the OIF "bow of opportunity" and leave it at that. In a superheroic game, you could do that and have the special effect be that he almost always carries "enough" extra arrows to get the job done.

If you want to have him limited to the arrows in MP#1, then I think you have to buy Charges on the MP equal to the total number of charges in MP#1. (To offset the cost, buy "costs END" as well.)

I personally would not consider the "must do arrow damage along with a trick" to be a Limitation worth value if the character has a wide variety of arrows (he can always use a Flash Arrow or a Flare Arrow if he doesn't want to hurt the target). If your GM does consider it worth a Limitation, I would call it "must use in a Multiple Power attack with an arrow-based attack"...since in theory you could grab someone's Universal Focus bow and do the same tricks with it. (Or go into the nearest hobby store...)

Re: (not so) New Advantage: Not an Attack Action

Not sure why the answer is a spoiler...but I'm going to ruin the surprise.

...but I'll put in spoiler lines anyway...

Doing this as Trigger I would get somewhere around the following values:

+1/4 for 1 defined condition (making an attack gesture, whatever)

-1/4 for requiring a 1/2 Phase action (this is not in the rules but seems about right)

+1/2 for resetting immediately

(Alternately, you could say "takes a 1/2 Phase to reset" and apply a Limitation "must reset immediately" which would probably be a -1/4, but is more complicated.)

That's a +1/2 for a half-phase action, which turns into +3/4 for a 0 Phase and +1 for whenever you want...which seems maybe OK though (like many things) capable of being abused.

Re: A Boon from the Gods...

Enough Armor (PD and ED) to satisfy the "Absolute Defense" rule (I would say 20 PD for most fantasy games, YMMV), with the Limitations "only vs. BODY" and Charges as you described.

Re: Triggered Recovery?

Would I be a jerk to ask what Triggered STR would do?

(While I see the logic in causing triggered REC to cause a Recovery...it's not the logic I would use. Doesn't stop you from making a house rule -- which is what I do for the eight millions times I disagree with the designer!)

Re: Bag of Holding...How Would You Do It?

How I would really really build it is fairly house-ruley...I have somewhere a writeup (don't recall where I got it) for a "Space" power, which effectively creates space (for vehicles, "distance distortion" effects, and extra-dimensional spaces). The sizes start out pretty small, so doing a bag of holding becomes a straightforward exercise.

Outside that, I would probably look at Shrinking with an overall mass/bulk limitation (i.e., it can only shrink so much at a time, regardless of how many individual items are involved).

Re: Bag of Holding...How Would You Do It?

Often I wouldn't bother; I would just list the effects of the bag and not worry about points.

Assuming I did want to build the bag with points, I would ideally want a method which provided an appropriate scale. By that I mean that a bag with a larger capacity should cost more than a bag with a smaller capacity.

Re: Analysis Thread: DCV Oddities

In older versions of Champions there was a comment about it being easier to hit a wall behind a target than am arbitrary spot of ground...I always assumed that (plus game balance for AOE attacks) was the rationale.

Re: An alternative to CSLs?

But ironically' date=' I think it would be [b']more[/b] abusive in a high-level game... not less. Since characters in a high-level game are more likely to have wider and higher ranges of CVs, an effect that reduces them to a flat value is more powerful.

 

For example, in a campaign where the average DEX for PCs is 18, having this power would counteract 24 points that your opponent has spent (the cost of their DEX above 10) and would allow you to hit on a 14-. But in a campaign where the average DEX for PCs is 29, this power would counteract 57 points your opponent has spent, and would allow you to hit on a 17-.

 

The higher the power level of the campaign gets, the more abusive this power is. In a typical Fantasy Hero game, it might not be abusive at all. In a typical Galactic Champions game, it might be horribly abusive.

Yes and no...in a higher power game, people who depend solely on DCV for survival are going to be in big trouble anyway, and armor values are generally higher. True, in a true low power game (like 50 point PCs) it will be less useful, but in a 100-150 point game I think it would be pretty darn good.

Re: An alternative to CSLs?

Sure, but someone looking to abuse the system in this case would also get just enough levels to hit DCV 3 on a 17-...

I would only allow it with some restriction (like the RSR), or in a very very high level game.

Re: Mental Sense

The description for Mental Awareness says that it allows detection of Mental Powers, and that Discriminatory is required to sense the type of Mental Power being used. From that, I would say that:

-- Discriminatory gives you information about the type of power (plus maybe strength, style/special effect, etc.)

-- You don't get any sort of "detect minds" sense; mental awareness is all about powers

-- Since mental powers are blocked by LOS, I personally would say that mental awareness is as well. If I was in a good mood, I might let it work through solid objects in a manner similar to hearing

If a character wants to sense minds and such, I'd require a new sense, not Mental Awareness.

Re: STUN Impairment/Disabling Rules

Using hit locations, this makes called shots and surprise attacks (if you halve the called shot penalty) even more devastating...but I'm guessing you are already comfortable with that. It doesn't seem unreasonable otherwise. I might add a CON roll to the 1/3 level (make it, no effect, fail it, impairing effect).

Re: PROJECT: The Ultimate GM Screen

I bought one of these screens at GenCon, it looks very nice.

On the GM side, one panel will definitely be a Hero Designer combat record with SPD, DEX, and other stats (I like the sheet that includes PER rolls, defenses, etc.) for all characters for the current run. I'll also put in charts I always need to look up (mental powers, PRE, etc.). Also, I will steal from D&D and put (on both sides, player and GM) modifiers for common skill uses. (D&D has, for example, standard difficulties for climbing different services, picking different types of locks, etc.) It's nice to have that readily available.

Re: Scene Sheets

I use something similar for con runs; I don't use the write-in part, but recalling set-up, location, stuff that is expected to happen, etc. in each scene is valuable.

My biggest problem is when I get carried away and forget to look down at it.

Re: How would you build this in HERO: A Wireless Dog Fence

The Trigger description doesn't come right out and say this, but it's implied strongly that you either set Triggers on yourself (like the "guy with smoke grenades" example) or on a specific location. So, in this case, you'd have to set the Trigger on one part of the yard, and the NND would emanate from there...which doesn't make sense for the effect.

Adding No Range would just mean that the target has to be right at the Trigger spot to take damage, which wouldn't work either.

Having it be on the collar itself is IMO better than tying it to a specific area, since you get to effect a given target over and over again. If the GM allows it, then problem solved. For a minor effect like this it might be fine, but if you wanted to do something more powerful it could be unbalancing to permit it.

The closest comparison in the rules is in the section for Constant Powers, where it says you need Usable As Attack to make a power that moves with a target. I would use the Differing Modifiers section of UAA to build it:

Apply UAA to: (1d6 NND, 0 END, resetting Trigger, always targets self (-0 here since it's not really a limitation)).

It's a bit complicated, but setting up a power that sticks to someone but only goes off sometimes is a little tricky.

Re: How would you build this in HERO: A Wireless Dog Fence

Call it a 1d6 NND, with a resetting Trigger,

with the Max stun based on setting level probaby a (-0) Limit

The whole thing would have to be Usable Against Others; otherwise the Trigger sets the power off at a given location and makes an Attack Roll like any other attack power. (Alternately, you could define the location as the collar itself.)

Re: How would you build this in HERO: A Wireless Dog Fence

One way: build the collar as a Computer with the appropriate programming, Detect Fence Boundaries, and the shocker (personally I'd make it a 1 pip NND; not really damage, but enough to deter a trained animal). Hm, it says "6 adjustable levels"; I suppose level 6 might be higher.

Another way: Uncontrolled Continuous attack, 0 END, stopped by removing the collar. Add Limitation "does not work when not crossing powered fence boundary". This lets you apply it as an attack.

Re: Bleeding

I don't like the Bleeding rule in the book because it doesn't make sense (the more damage you take, the greater your chance to stop Bleeding).

From a more general perspective, having substantial "post attack" damage rules means that characters have a high chance of dying outside of combat in a fairly non-heroic fashion...you might want to make sure your players are OK with that.

That said, if I were going to use Bleeding rules I would probably do something along these lines:

1) Make it much harder to stop the BODY loss that happens when you are at negative BODY; this means big penalties to Paramedics, requiring proper equipment, etc.

2) Change the Impairing/Disabling rules so that bleeding is one possibility. You could get fancy with charts and CON rolls and the like, I would probably just say "CON Roll every post-12 or lose one BODY".

3) Sit back and wait for the player complaints.

Re: [HOW TO] Stacking multi-Aid

One way would simply be to change the rule -- say that Aids can stack (maybe with an Adder or Advantage). Another option would be to use the first Aid on the second Aid -- adding 18 or so points will get you a die and a half more Aid, better than nothing...