Cost of Base Followers

[bigdamnhero]

Another day, another "I thought I knew how that worked..." question.

 

If a Base has Followers, I always assumed the cost of those Followers (X/5) was added to the Total Cost on the Base's character sheet, not to the cost the owning Character pays for it on his character sheet. So say Defender has a 150-point Base, for which he paid 30 Character Points. If he wants to add 100 points worth of staff to the Base, I assumed that increases the cost of the base by 100/5 = 20, making the total cost of the Base 170 Base Points, for which Defender then pays 170/5 = 34 Character Points. 

 

But I was talking to This Other Guy who insists the cost is calculated as: cost of Base is 150/5 = 30, plus cost of Base's Followers is 100/5 = 20, meaning Defender pays 50 Character Points. In other words, the cost is exactly the same whether they're the Base's Followers (and therefore narratively restricted to the Base in some way) or the PC's Followers (with no such restriction).

 

 

Who's right?

[Steve Long]

The Other Guy. See 6E2 191. By way of example, look at the Justice Squadron Mansion and other Bases in The Ultimate Base that have Followers and/or Vehicles -- those costs are always listed separately at the end of the sheet.

 

Doing it your way would mean that Defender could buy Followers and Vehicles at a cost of only 1 Character Point per 25 Total Points, which I think most HERO gamers would be wary of. Of course, for ease of bookkeeping you could simply write the full cost of the Followers on the Base's character sheet (i.e., "500 Total Points' worth of Followers," costing 100 Character Points) and then divide it all by 5 at the end; the cost would be the same. As long as all of a Base's Followers/Vehicles cost the purchasing character 1:5 points, not 1:25, I don't think most GMs will care how it's written down.