Steffen

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport

You are mixing apples with oranges.

 

Superman and Flash first have to make a grab vs. a target with their STR before they can carry them anywhere.

 

Doing something similar via Teleportation that doesn't depend upon a successful grab manuever requires a UAA build.

The power in question is specifically built to be triggered when a target has been Grabbed.

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport

I think it could with the trigger but it seems a little off I think' date=' plus it would suck if the guy forgot about the power and hugged his wife/girlfriend and the trigger went off. [/quote']

 

But the Trigger requires Zero Phase Action to reset so he could reset it only before he Grabs a person he intends to rescue or kidnap.

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport

In 5e rules this would require 2 separate Teleport builds. One for the controlling character and another for transporting the willing or unwilling passenger. The second part can be linked to the first. I will have to check my books tonight to see if this has changed in 6e.

In 6e it says "A character with Teleportation who Grabs a character cannot then Teleport and carry the Grabbed character with him unless he has enough Increased Mass to handle the extra weight and the GM permits this."

Re: Rescue/Kidnap Teleport

Part of the character's special effect (his powers are based on the characters shown in the movie "Jumper") is that he can only take people or things with him, he cannot send them away on their own. That's why I think UOO is not a fitting advantage as it excludes the character from the teleport.

Anyway, my question may have been not clear enough. I'll try to reword it: Does the above power build allow for grabing a person and then teleporting away in the same phase?

Hello!

One of my players is playing a teleporting fire fighter and wants to have a power that helps him rescue people. The idea is to grab a person in need and instantly teleporting to safety. Furthermore this teleport should also work on unwilling targets as a “kidnap teleport”.

The teleporting rules allow the teleporter to take a grabbed target with him, so I saw no reason to disallow this kind of teleport.

I imagined it to look like this:

Phase 1: Attack unwilling target with Grab

Phase 2: Teleport with the grabbed target if it didn’t break free from the Grab in its own phase

But the player does not want to wait for his next phase to teleport away because the endangered person might get hurt in the meantime or the grabbed opponent may free himself from the grab. That’s why he built a power with a trigger:

Teleportation 8 m, Increased Mass 2x, Trigger (when PC has grabbed a target, activates as a Zero Phase Action, requires Zero Phase Action to reset, +1/2) (19 Active Points); Increased Endurance (x3 END); -1), Limited Power: Does not work in strong electric or magnetic field (-1/2). Real Cost: 8 points

Is it legal to teleport as a Zero action after the Grab Attack? What about a Megascale teleport which is usually considered Noncombat Movement?

If it’s legal, isn’t it too easy to kidnap an opponent considering that he can oppose the Grab Attack only with his casual strength? If it’s not legal, how would you build the desired power?

Thank you for your comments and enlightening input.

Re: Top 10 most powerful scrolls

Baal's Fire:

This spell erases a being or object and it's entire past from existence resulting in a world where the target of the spell has never existed. This will change the course of history but may also create paradoxes.

Furthermore, annihilating a being will also destroy its soul which is considered a deeply evil deed and will damn the caster's own soul but may also draw a powerful evil being's attention to him/her.

I would build it using extra-dimensional movement.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

Use what the players gave you for background in their private life.

I plan to use the backgrounds of the brick (she's got a teacher boyfriend) and the speedster (he's got a sister that will develop her own powers in the future) but the other two don't seem to have a private life.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

or the player could help the GM do the NPC voices then he could be part of the game

He has no intentions to leave the game. And he's definitely not good at portraying different personalities let alone funny voices.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

Then the other PCs get to beat him down. And I think the guy probably metagames enough to know that's what will happen' date=' so he won't do it. Although if the GM is up to it, it could turn out pretty dang epic.[/quote']

 

You're right, the player will probably not do anything that could get his character kicked out of the group.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

One organized crime group (A) knows he's not really hero material, and thinking he can be bought, goes to him and makes an offer to help them muscle in on some other group's ( turf. If you want, they can have some leverage over someone he holds dear. He can either (1) help A and make B mad at him, (2) he can try to bust A and make A mad at him, or (3) he can tell them to piss off which makes A mad, but then B knows they met without knowing the outcome, so B thinks he's helping A, and now he's stuck in the middle. Considering he's got good guy friends, he's not likely to choose 1 unless he wants to infiltrate the group.

That's an interesting idea and may be able to use it with slight modifications.

A company involved in arms manufacturing knows about the existence of the PCs and also learned of the process that gave them their powers. As only people with a rare genetic condition can be transformed and the company hasn't found any yet (two prospects were freed by the PCs) they will try to convince the PCs to work with them, offering lots of money. If they agree the company will sooner or later betray their trust and try to brainwash them into supersoldiers.

I don't expect the police officer or the fire fighter to agree but maybe I can tempt the electric guy. He wants to use his powers to his financial benefit anyway.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

Also the create a hero/villain/new circle threads have heroes/villains/teams to be used at your pleasure.

CES

Thank you for all of your pointers

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

I agree. If he "bought into" the original campaign concept' date=' he's not holding up his end of the bargain. If he didn't...you need to reach some kind of agreement on what sort of game (and what sort of character) will suit you both.[/quote']

It's already some kind of agreement. He's not into superheroes but the others wanted to try a superhero game so I build the campaign as a modern science fiction/fantasy story with normal people that acquire superpowers but don't wear flashy costumes to satisfy everyone. I'm trying to increase the level of superheroicness slowly.

 

Personally' date=' on the occasions when a player's character isn't motivated to be a hero, I generally just let the player sit there while I deal with the engaged players' characters. But then, playing a character who can'twon't participate in the adventure violated Campaign Rule # 2 -- "If your character's personality, values, goals, hygiene, etc. make it unreasonably difficult or impossible for him to work with the other characters...choose another character." (Rule # 1 is "No silly characters. Nuff said.")[/quote']

He is participating and his character does work with the others, it's just that he does not want to or cannot play a hero. He can't imagine why anyone would do so. He is just not very good at playing a PC with a some kind of personality as it would mean to do things and make decisions he, as a player, does not want to do or take, especially if they involve risking the life of his PC.

No matter what PC he plays, basically they are all Chaotic Neutral Half-Orcs. But we know that and can deal with it.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

I'd recommend putting the onus on the player' date=' and ask him what motivates his character and what kinds of adventures/scenarios would engage both the character and the player.[/quote']

 

I did that already but I should probably do so again before we go on playing (I'm taking a break from GMing right now). Maybe he came up with something.

Problem is, his initial motivation was to find out how and why they got their powers. When they accomplished this (so they think) he had to find a new motivation which is right now simple curiosity (probably just the player who wants to see what happens next) and some sense of loyalty to his companions who are thinking about helping and saving people on a regular basis. This is enough for him to stay in the game but he also told me that he wants to find a better reason to help people than simply being a nice guy.

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

He needs a vengeance motive. Get him involved in a gang war between your two favorite organized crime groups.

Your're probably right. Fights are what he likes most about RPGs.

Concerning the vengeance motive I suggested he should take the psychological complication “Justice, not Law” to explain why he liked to beat up bad guys but during play I had to explain that it didn’t mean “Killing criminals is okay”. I'm glad that he gave in, the police officer brick was already preparing to flex her muscles...

Re: Need help for a low-level / street-level-campaign

Because we've been playing for more than 10 years. His attitude towards heroism may be difficult sometimes but he's a friend of mine.

Although I’ve been running a superhero campaign for a few months now I still consider myself new to this genre.

While I have a fairly clear idea of the campaign in general, I’m in need of suggestions and tips concerning rescue missions, heroic deeds and stories suitable for low-powered heroes (standard heroic) that are not part of the overall storyline that I can occasionally throw at my players as a diversion and to show them that people need their help.

While the brick and the teleporter want to use their powers to help people, the electric energy projector doesn’t see a good reason to do so (the player is unwilling to play good, helpful characters) and the Nightcrawler rip-off is just… present (the player is unable to make decisions).

Maybe it’s also helpful to know that the year is 2003 in the “real” world and the characters are the first superbeings. Only a few people know about their existence, to the media and the public they are no more than an urban legend. There have only been a few sightings and just a few heroic exploits.

So, does anybody have suggestions for me or knows published modern-day adventures (game system is not important) including crimes, murders, non-super human opponents and detective work?

I’ll probably go to the “Internationale Spieltage SPIEL” in Essen next week and hope to find some suggested books.

Thanks!

Re: Worst Hero Names (of your campaigns)

The heroes in my very low powered campaign have not yet become real super-heroes and only a few chose to use aliases.

The powers of one of them are electricity-based and because of his preferred attack we suggested calling him "Taser". His real name is "Philip Wood" and another player took the last two letters of each name and now insists on unsuitably calling him "IPod".

It really gets on my nerves...

Re: Free fall teleport

Just tell him to buy Safe Blind Teleport...then he won't have to worry about mis-ports.

He cannot yet afford to buy Safe Blind Teleport, Movement Skill Levels or Range Skill Levels to make sure that he arrives where he want to be. It's not just the fear of arriving inside of something, it's also the possibility to completely miss the target area.

While we're at it, how are teleporters like Cheshire Cat or Tesseract supposed to work without any of the above? Do they simply rely on their OCV when they cannot see their destination?

Re: Free fall teleport

I second this motion. I was just pointing out the consequences if it is a NC teleport. And frankly' date=' I like the idea of a CON roll to avoid a (IMO minor) DEX penalty. Over time, I might even award the guy a +1 to his CON roll (usable while teleporting, on rollercoasters, etc.) because he'd get used to it.[/quote']

 

Thank you, I'll keep your idea in mind although I'm not planning to include a theme park anytime soon.

Re: Free fall teleport

It's a quirky way to travel' date=' but with the addition of his adders, it's perfectly fine. And he probably doesn't have to worry about people wanting to hitch rides.[/quote']

 

That's also one of the ideas behind this mode of travel. He wants to keep the other group members from seeing him as the transporter guy. He even took a limitation that makes people sick (i.e. lose CON) when teleporting with him.

Re: Free fall teleport

Thank you for the replies and advice. I hope to get more suggestions.

After reading Balabanto's reply I have to change my understanding of "No Relative Velocity".

I thought the teleporter could reduce his speed to 0 with every "No Relative Velocity" teleport but in fact he'll eventually reach a terminal velocity of 200 km/h.

Me and the player will have to discuss this matter more thoroughly, I'm afraid...

Hello!

My players and me are still new to the Hero System and I'm the only one who actually read the rules (5th edition) so I hope that you can give me some advice.

I'm GMing a Heroic level Champions campaign (like the “Heroes” TV show but not as dark) and one of my players is playing a teleporter.

As he is afraid of misteleporting he came up with the idea that his character just teleports straight up in the air, looks for his destination while falling and repeatedly teleports through the air until he reaches the building he’s looking for.

I know that this is not the way Teleport is supposed to be used but as the character does have the disadvantage “Thrillseeker”, the talent “Absolute Range Sense”, practices Parkour and took the Position Shift and No Relative Velocity adders I actually don't have a problem with this idea. In fact, I think it is a very interesting concept.

In order to complicate things a bit I'm planning to ask the player to make a Navigation skill check in order to find his destination and to make a CON-check after arrival and reducing his DEX for a minute if he fails.

So I'm asking you, the more experienced players and GMs, do you think that this is a valid way of using Teleport or does it abuse the rules in a way I just don't see?

Thank you!

Re: Need help with a name

How about "Fennec"? It's a small desert fox with very large ears living in North Africa.