Doc Democracy

1 hour ago, tunglashr said:

So I was considering +5 SPD (the character has 7 SPD) only for Deflection (-2), only activates once per turn maximum (-2). This way every phase she does not have an action, she has a deflect available, until she uses it.

This is the way I would do it.  I would not bring in the extras Lonewolf was mentioning (that she is now a SPD 12 character as far as ongoing powers are concerned) because I would't deliver ongoing benefits, like recovery or ground speed.

The key question would be cost.  You are proposing it would cost 10 points. So no advantage on regular SPD.  But this way would vary.  A SPD 3 character would have to pay 18 points. 

I suppose it makes sense to cost less for faster characters, there is less additional utility, but I don't think it should ever cost less than 12, because, the utility to use the action on ANY phase makes it better than just 1 regular SPD.  The justification for floating the cost would be that your second limitation is probably worth less for higher SPD characters.

Doc

What @LoneWolf said.  🙂

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

So...  False memory?  Tell ne if it is a false memory.  Please dont make me read all those books again....

It is a bit of a false memory.  You get a chunk more points to build for free.  The could have said, you get 325 points to build a character and an extra point for every point of complication you take upto 400.  Because the value caps wt 75 points.

I reckon the way they present it means the rules emphasise that a 400 point character with 75 points of complicationsis normal.  Pitching it the other way suggests that a 325 point character is normal but you can get more power by compromising your character.

I think it addresses the issue that players far enough along the gamist path produced severely twisted characters to squeeze out increased points for their characters.  It puts a RAW thing for GMs to say, it is normal for your PC's life to be complicated; it is normal for these things to come into gameplay; it is something to give good consideration to, if your character is going to be tied into this game.

I actually think the GM should probably offer a 25 point campaign discount, complications that will be relevant to the ongoing campaign, to be revealed during play.  A way of ensuring all the players are tied into the ongoing campaign as well as having complications of their own - and that will change, potentially by adventure arc.

Doc

55 minutes ago, Jason Reid said:

You can of course use limits as a storytelling vehicle, but for a lot of folks, they are limits first and vehicles second.

That is why both the GM and players need to be on the same page, and there needs to be trust between them.

Sounds like Sketchpad's group are on that page, the players trust him to use the complications to tell a better story and not to screw them over.  It might not work in my group, or yours, but there is no BadWrongFun here.  If players see their character gets more love through having more complications, the player gets a fraction more spotlight, then there is no need for a point balancing exercise.

11 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

When you have a x2 Vulnerability to Corgis, expect an occasional Corgi to show up and slobber on you.

How did you know my wife had a corgi??

22 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

And the ones that are hit take the full damage/effect of the power.

turns out we are both right but you are more right (I think).

If you have AoE TK at 60STR, and want to scoop up sand, then the amount of sand is 100 tonnes, regardless of the area involved, not 100 tonnes per 1m radius etc.  Quite explicit.

If you are punching or grabbing, then "full telekinetic STR applies to each target".

It feels a bit inconsistent, if the targets are all 100 tonnes, could you lift them all?

14 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

And the ones that are hit take the full damage/effect of the power.

Are you saying that I am wrong?  It wouldnt be the first time but I am sure it has been true (or accepted as such) in lots of other threads.  I will see if I can find anything definitive.

I do have something definitive that goes against the wishes of the OP though - if you have AoE STR or TK, then all targets must be affected in the same way, that is, all grabbed, all hit, all pushed etc. 

Sounds to me that @Sketchpad is saying that taking the template complications drives story and the player gets a bit extra GM-love/spotlight time, which is decent recompense for the complications.

If complications at a table are seenas story hooks rather than "disadvantages" then I can see it working.

11 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

hat is where I run things differently, I guess.

I am all for folk runing things they way they want.  100%

I can understand, if it is your game, you say, if you want to be a skrull infiltrator, you take the template, and the complications.  No way round that.  And that is fine. I am just trying to understand what the player gets from still having to take the standard point value of complications.

My questions is probably, would you actively stop someone else, who bought all the same powers and did not take the complications (and did not say they were a skrull infiltrator) from playing that character? 

2 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

What I'm thinking is that the Template Complications don't count toward the 75, but rather are gained from grabbing the Templates. A character still has 75 points to take toward their Matching Complications. 

The issue I see with that is GoodBoy looks at your templates and picks 2, takes the 45 points of complications, and then chooses another 75 points of complications.

Looking over his shoulder GoodMan decides he wants all the abilities in the templates but not the complications and so he builds his character with no template and takes 75 points of complications.

Goodman gets all the same abilities and only 60% of the complications of GoodBoy.

Is it worth the complications to officially be a Skrull Infiltrator?

47 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

This isn't how any other power with AOE works, though.  If you have a 10d6 Blast with AOE, every target in the area takes 10d6.

True, but @mattingly was talking about multiple uses of STR, so, if you want to stick to RAW, then this is an issue.

26 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

 

I agree, which is why I was curious about this. I'm wondering if Template Complications should be included in the amount the player chooses. I think there's some customization lost if they count. For example:

Commander Star's player has taken a Government Template that has "Subject to Orders (15pt)" as a complication.

 

If it's added to their Matching Complications, they lose 15 points of customization, as they "have" to take this. What I'm thinking is that it's just an added Complication, and the player may customize further. Does that make sense? I should also note that I've opted to use something akin to GURPS Quirks as well, bumping Matching Complications totals up by 5. 

A template is simply a bundle presented as a bunch of skills/perks/powers/complications that this kind of person would usually have.

There are no bonus points for taking a package, so really, if you do not want all the bits of a template then you can individually buy everything you want.  I do not see having the option of taking additional complications to be an advantage 🙂 and I am sure most GMs would be fine with a character taking additional complications - the resistance would come from expecting a character with an additional 15 points of complications getting an additional 15 points of powers/skills etc over other player characters.

Doc

When I was running an ongoing campaign, I tried to roll for Hunteds etc between sessions and then use the Hunters (villains and organisations) to replace the ones suggested by a bought adventure or the ones I planned to use for home brewed sessions.  When I was properly prepared it actually showed the game value of the mechanics as dependents, vulnerabilities, hunteds etc came into play in less crowbarred fashions (like I did for years before I learned how to do things better).

I do agree that fewer is better because, when I did it, with four or five heroes, there were a LOT of returning faces.  It did mean that the hunted relationship evolved as it had to as adventures drove things to change (and sometimes be replaced as villains were imprisoned etc).

Doc

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Remember that what you are ultimately looking for is a cheaper way to model SPD+30.

The very reason I thought of Duplication.  It gives additional actions, all of which are like you doing it.

1 hour ago, Tech said:

Cool! You remember the AC? Got most of them myself.

Ah, was suggesting it would have been a good article in there, I don't think there ever was.... 😢

I think the big issue RAW about AoE STR and TK is that, if I recall properly, if you have 50STR then it is 50 STR over the whole area.

That means, if there are 5 people in the area you can apply 10 STR per person, or a 2D6 punch.

I was also going to suggest an invisible duplication...you suddenly have three or four of you for a very short time to do a variety of actions.  Almost making duplication an instant power, invisible because the actions all take place in the "dead time".

I think how much detail you want will vary by genre.  If I am in Champions, I reckon 99% of the time I dont want any difference in how grenades work.  If I am playing a skirmish WWII game then I want the potential for throwing back grenades and, potentially, shooting grenadiers who drop their grenade among their fellows.  Grenades in the second can be high risk, high gain weapons. 

Would have made a good article for Adventurer's Club....

27 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

We could certainly fine-tune grenades to have the fuse count down, if we really want granularity.  That would suggest that the fuse is set by the action of the grenadier, who then must decide how long to wait before throwing it.  Then he throws, and the countdown continues.  That would also allow the grenade to land and someone to attempt to pick it up and throw it back.  Of course, the grenadier could also wait too long - perhaps he is distracted by a PRE attack!

We could do all that, but we are playing a game rather than simulating life.  RAW there is no real chance of doing this.  In the source material, the war comics and movies I watched, it happened often enough to be a thing.

So, if we want it to be a thing, how do we make it possible.  Too much detail and you lose interest and becomes tedious.  Too much cost and noone ever attempts it. 

I was looking to offer a more limited attack, one that does not just have an effect.  But to minimise the additional bureaucracy involved.

And one that does not necessitate working out size and velocity modifiers (because I am very lazy...)

I would be more inclined to autofire than area of effect.  The key point it is missing is that noone else will miss an action - the special effect would be that EVERYONE and EVERYTHING else in the world did nothing and noticed no disconnect except the results of the action. 

The other problem would be that hitting someone who was time-stopped should be much easier than in normal combat.  As would grabbing and pushing people over.  You might want to live with that because, in game, as GM I would want it to be harder to grab, punch and trip than to punch, punch, punch.  As such I would add up all the penalties from the various manouevres and apply them all to all the attacks (as well as the usual penalties for autofiring multiple targets).

Doc

3 hours ago, Jason Reid said:

To me this doesn't sound like a move that just any random VIPER agent would have available to them in their repertoire, so I don't think it needs core combat maneuver rule support. I'd have no problem requiring a character to pay points for the privilege. Reflection with some limitations maybe seems fine to me. You could probably lay on enough to get this looking like a Talent.

 

Alternatively yeah you could build the attack with a special limitation like, "Reflectable" or "Deflectable" but then you're rewriting every grenade in the game, or justifying why some grenades have this disadvantage while others don't.

 

Other Alternatively you could extend the Real Weapon disadvantage to cover this, at least for the grenades that take it.

I was not actually suggesting a special manouevre or anything, just a way of managing the thing in play.    I have no problem with some grenades having this disadvantage while others do not, just like some grenades will be real weapons and others will not.  🙂 You could, of course, fold it into the real weapon limitation but then it comes back to how it looks in play.  By making this a limitation of the attack, you get the rolls during the attack without impacting the actions of the target.

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Real Weapon sounds like the best approach for allowing the grenade to be returned.  It should not be easy, but anyone could attempt it.  No one gets trained to do this, so a special maneuver seems out of place.

We could simply use Grab mechanics (DCV based on size and velocity) - once you Grab, a Throw is a free followup.  Given the defensive nature, I'd allow an Abort.

Hugh's suggestion works too but it means that the chances of it happening rely purely on the OCV of the target with essentially no reflection on the skill of the grenadier being able to time the throw.  @Hugh Neilson if a character wants to try and return the grenade, do you mean you would say, "yes, if you abort your next action you can try a grab and throw"?? If they fail the grab, does that mean they have aborted, simply to ensure they are at ground zero of the explosion, or would you then ignore the failed grab and see what the attack roll said??  I am also wondering if you have worked out what chance your everyman soldier might have to do this?

I do agree with Hugh that anyone should be able to attempt it.

Been thinking about this.  I reckon the attack needs to take a limitation of returnable attack.  Almost like Extra time. 

If someone fires a returnable attack, then the defender decides on their response, dive for cover, brace for impact, try to return it.

If you try to return it, that attacker then rolls their PRE (-1 per 10 active points), every point they make the PRE roll by is a penalty to the defender's DEX roll.

The idea behind the PRE roll is keeping a cool head to run down the timer, modified by how dangerous it is to hold onto it.

If the modified DEX roll is successful, the attack is returned.  If not, the grenade goes off at zero range.

5 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Suppose it is important to the overall story that at least one character does in fact die, or that at least one death be completely  inevitable (you grimdark jackass, you.    ).

What if a character death gave a minor boost to everyone else?  That kind of pushes toward the noble sacrifice...

1 hour ago, Monick51 said:

Agreed! I don't want to fall into the old batman trope of "He's evil because he's CrImiNAlLy InSanE!". I was actually thinking it would be less of a sanity mechanic and more of a "basic order functions are being lost" until you're just a shambling husk, a vessel for your power

Hmm.  I think you might want to think about having an accidental change.  So, you might have the potential for losing control, where an evil entity essentially drives you.  So you have control of your body and mind and the use of these powers but there are times when you are either unaware of your actions or a helpless oberver.  The accidental change maintains the same powerset but switches the controlling personality.  It is very rare to begin with, possibly 3 or less when triggered but, over time, becomes more and more common.  The trigger for the accidental change becoming greater and greater and the chance to change back less and less.  Until eventually the trigger is 18 or less and the recover is 3 or less, possibly only becoming aware long enough to despair at what you have become.

It would need a good player and a detailed idea of what the subversive personality would be, potential drives and objectives...

Doc

I would allow it, I would even allow flicking desolid on and off as the SFX of a block, or dodge.  I would not allow you to switch it off, attack, then switch it on.

I am with Paladin.  We know the window HERO was designed to play within and that window is focused on hero vs villain.

To make both the heroes and villains supercharged, the idea should be to shrink the rest of the world.  Boost the effectiveness of heroes/villains against the real world and degrade the effectiveness of real world  things against heroes/villains.

I am thinking that you introduce either an everyman 75% damage reduction against non-super damage for PCs and a vulnerability to attacks from supers on everyone and everything that are not supers.

That way the system sits where it was designed to but interactions with the world change dramatically.

Doc