Balabanto

At 5:30 PM on Thursday, February 18th, Sharon Packer will be reading excerpts from her book "Superheroes and Superegos, Analyzing the Minds Behind the Masks" at the New York Academy of Medicine. Preregistration is required. The address is 1216 5th Avenue at 103rd Street New York, NY 10029 Phone: 212-822-7315

Re: the meter and the hex (stretching) The problem is that cost doesn't always follow function, GA. I've already looked at this and noted a significant problem. Stretching puts you into Hand to Hand combat with your opponent. Range modifiers do not apply. Stretching is now significantly more uber, because it's real "value" is the ability to engage enemies from far away without suffering any range modifiers. Granted, they are also in hand to hand combat with you, but it's a 0 phase action to end the power after you use it. For 30 points, I can get 10 Range Skill Levels with a ranged attack, or I can buy 30 points of stretching and engage them directly. The flaw in this is that hand to hand modifiers for the attacker are always better. You can dodge with hand to hand levels, grab your opponent and give him penalties, or use martial arts on him, which carry all kinds of additional combat modifiers with them. Plus, "Does not Cross Intervening Space" now more than pays for itself. The issue here is that most battles don't occur on maps where everything is more than 60 meters apart. A hero or villain with 30 meters of stretching and a bunch of modifiers to it effectively can be in hand to hand combat with everything on the board. That's sixty percent of a football field. Most of the time, the stretching is more effective, and you can put that in a multipower slot. You can't put skill levels of that sort in a multipower slot without specific GM permission. The law of the battlemap defies this theory, sir. I'm sorry, but everything should be reasonably understandable by the players surrounding the table without radically altering the scale of the map every time you run.

Re: What can you do with five points? You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Bnakagawa again.

Re: Multiple Suits of Power Armor Build a base suit of armor. Then, using a gadget pool, craft a bunch of armor types for him based on modules. Underwater Armor, Space Armor, Stealth Armor, Assault Armor, etc.

Re: Free fall teleport Uh, in his case, No Relative Velocity doesn't, because his special effect says he teleports and falls, and teleports and falls. No relative velocity just means you don't take damage from teleporting onto moving objects. If you're already falling, you're STILL falling. Plus, he would need a 12 SPD to avoid this particular effect, as he would have to be able to GO on every phase to avoid suffering more than a 10 meter fall.

Re: Free fall teleport This does abuse the rules in a way you don't see. He should also have to pay for Clairsentience, Leaping to counter falling distance, and damage resistance. (AND Lots of it) Falling Velocity is retained regardless of the advantages he's already purchased. Therefore, the 30d6 Damage is his.

Re: "Now I will RULE the CITY!!!" How does that work? Well, taking over the city does have it's benefits. I mean, it would be easier to take over Monaco. Then you'd have money, resorts, and babes!

Re: Free Character Defining Skills My sentiment on this is that you have to prove to the GM the skill has no in-game utility, and he has to agree that it has no in-game utility. Many of the things you've suggested can already be rolled into other skills that are already in the game. I've had many times where the player said "Well, this skill is useless. Why should I have to pay for it?" And, of course, a few adventures later, the use of that skill turns out to be critical. So I generally don't let this happen.

Re: Foxbat For President! (Adventure from Blackwyrm) Thank you for the positive review, sir.

Re: What can you do with five points? Wow. You guys aren't thinking hard enough. Ready? Here it is. Global Thermonuclear Follower

Re: Champions Sneak Peek #1: The Cover! That's a counterintuitive marketing strategy. Your strongest sales should always be your core rulebooks. Showing people other things you can do with the core rulebooks never sells as well. Pretty art on the main rulebooks is key. Look at D+D 4. The system is AWFUL. But the art is phenomenally attractive and draws people in.

Re: Champions Sneak Peek #1: The Cover! Counter: Those uses are still there, but Champions came first, and is still the core of the system's fanbase. Counter: Anything looks better than a big gold hex on a big blue background. Every single one of my gamers said to me "Bal! This looks like an auto repair manual." That's hardly a ringing endorsement of product appearance. "It's TWO volumes that look like an auto repair manual? You have gotta be kidding me!" was another comment from one of my players. I love Hero. I bought a copy of those auto repair manuals for every single player I have, and guess what? The cover art on the main books is a big negative. When I go to conventions and people see what they can play, if people see a pretty looking rulebook, they say "Hey, what's that?" As opposed to "Oh, my god, what's that ugly book?" I would buy the books if Osama Bin Laden was giving me the finger on the cover. But I know better than to think that beautiful cover art won't sell more books.

Re: Champions Sneak Peek #1: The Cover! My only question is "Why wasn't this on the cover of the basic rulebooks?" Art sells copies.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Today in yet another Indianapolis Superhero Session, the heroes encountered a villian who turns people into DNA overridden combat machines for a minute or so. Well, actually, they only encountered one of the minions. So after the battle is over, Wilt calls her mad scientist guardian (Don't ask how she got a mad scientist guardian, the government figured it was safest) Wilt: So, we have this goo that was released when he transformed it back. Eugene: It's interesting goo. Is it important? Wilt: Well, it's science! Mildly disturbing science. Could you come home and watch my little brother while we talk about it at our base? Eugene: But...I could analyze it for you. Wilt: You're on a DATE. With Sharon! A girl, remember? (This is the problem with having a mad scientist for a guardian) Rogue: I have an idea! You could bring Tommy to the base with us, and then Sharon could take care of him while Eugene fills us in! Wilt: Stop helping! Just stop helping! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Later, at the base, Eugene is explaining the goo to the heroes. Eugene: Well, it receives a radio signal after some form of triggering mechanism, which rewrites a portion of his DNA and activates a number of automated silicate/carbon compounds already active in the latent DNA rewrite, effectively turning him into a fighting machine with his mind locked away in a storage compartment. Amethyst (II): Could you explain that to us in English? Eugene: It rewrites his head and turns him into a lethal killing machine. I think I'm pretty much done here. I'm going to send P.T.A.H. a copy, and the local police a copy, give you guys a copy, and keep a copy for me so that I can make molecular models, mwahahahahaaaa!....(Stops momentarily) Don't tell Sharon I said that.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... There are so many things that can go wrong with that sentence. And they're all dirty! Congratulations!

Re: What is the best thing to Drain to incapacitate? The answer is EGO. To drain any other stat the way the rules work is a mistake. You could drain SPD, but that takes too long to get a result. When you drain EGO, especially now that it's a 1 point stat, most characters very quickly need to make rolls at 9- to take any actions at all. At that point, you've reached mopup time. You can disable opponents with this if you have a 4 SPD and they have an 8.

http://www.agirlandherfed.com/comic/?666 There you go.

Re: Penetrating + Reduced Penetration = Broken? I don't THINK this is broken. I KNOW this is broken. Just because you can throw a limitation on something doesn't mean you SHOULD throw a limitation on something. The idea of building penetrating attacks with reduced penetration falls into the same "hinky" category as buying a ton of flight with UAO, Indirect and noncombat multipliers, and buying Martial Throw. In general, I wouldn't allow this attack. If you wanted to build a needler, you should buy an Autofire, Penetrating attack, or an Area of Effect, Penetrating attack if a whole bunch of needles are sheared off a piece of plastic at once. The fact that you can still do it in combination with these only proves just how broken it is. This might be easier to understand by this principle. A Limitation that is not a Limitation is worth no points. Therefore, these are the questions you must ask. 1) Does every single application of this limitation make everything better? (The old version of Only in Hero ID, For Instance) 2) Will the use of this limitation significantly hinder just this character, or all characters equally when the same special effect is used? If the limitation doesn't hinder that specific character in the same way as other characters, and the power can be easily acquired by multiple beings in exactly the same way, then it isn't a limitation either. All characters should be hindered equally by the same limitation. It is possible that a lesser value might be received for that limitation, but usually, the differences are pretty glaring and obvious. (Example: Bob can summon his gun back to his hand at any time. He receives a lesser bonus for his gun, or no bonus at all, because it can't be disarmed, only destroyed.) 3) Is it related in some basic way to the way the Universe functions? In a game where everyone requires Incantations and Gestures to cast their spells, these aren't really limitations, because everyone who can cast spells acquires these disadvantages for free. You don't get points for them because everyone already has them. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many. 4) Will giving this PC or NPC said power create a war of escalation between the PC's or between the GM and the PCs? This is how games die. One of the ways that players leave games is because other players step on THEIR psychological limitations. Judge carefully your group of players as people before allowing something like this. Sometimes it may be wiser to just say 'No' and bite the bullet on a little immediate anger for the overall long term good of the game or gameworld.

Re: Supervillains Who Know Their Limitations Doctor Dialysis: By cleaning people's kidneys and purifying their blood, he decants all of the impurities to destroy the world with biotoxins.

Re: Supervillains Who Know Their Limitations The Bully: He wants to rule the school.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression I totally disagree with you. The goal of rules design should be to create a flawless system that runs A) Smoothly Quickly and C) Fairly. There are a fair number of things in Hero System that I consider far too permissive and I have to spend lots of time figuring out ways around to rebalance it. The way they turned Transfer into Drain followed by Aid is overcomplicated, clunky, and difficult to manage. For the record, the difference between two die rolls and three die rolls adds two minutes to every action where a player uses that combination of abilities. And that's just that little piece. So I want a system that is not about "Saying no because I don't like the build." I want it to be obvious that certain builds are A) Wrong Unfair to others and C) Rude. Nothing is worse than going through twelve weeks of plot buildup than having someone say "Well, I just activate power X, and rules as written, it does this." And everything collapses like a house of cards because of mathematics. So much for the fun of the other four to five players at your table. Game Systems need to be policed by designers so that things like this don't happen. Hero's biggest strength is it's versatility and the best combat system out there. That's why I love it, that's why I play it. Hero's biggest weakness is that it isn't policed enough by both it's designers and it's GMs. I do my best, but I have 50 pages of house rules. That's a lot of house rules. And that's to run a pretty basic superhero game. So before you think permissiveness is always the answer, you might want to think again.

Re: Multipower are so common, why not just cut every cost by 2 ? This is PRECISELY why the Utility Belt as Multipower Model is more justifiable. Having everyone be VPP Man is just powergaming.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression I've played RPGA adventures. They don't handle creativity well.

Re: Multipower are so common, why not just cut every cost by 2 ? No, it isn't. 15 points for the reserve, and god only knows how many slots in the belt. If you look at Steve's utility belt from UPB, there's like 60 slots in the darned thing. VPP is actually too efficient for it's point cost as far as that's concerned.

Re: Multipower are so common, why not just cut every cost by 2 ? I believe that a Multipower represents a set of specific abilities, systems, types of energy, or what have you that are linked by a common control mechanism. They are not necessarily linked by special effect, but they all operate on the same general principle. Examples: Batman's Utility Belt: What he pulls out of the belt may be different, but he usually has the right stuff beforehand. People who VPP Batman's Utility Belt are cutting corners and making him too plotty and not characterish. A Powered Armor Character's Weapons Systems: This character has a selector mechanism by which he fires weapons or operates abilities based on a menu of some sort. A Character who controls one specific type of energy, but who has a large number of different things he can do with it: He's only got so much energy he can use, and focussing effects requires all of the energy at once. This would lead to a variety of different blast effects, etc. All of these are examples of multipowers. Your mileage may vary. I don't think superhero games can be played without Multipowers, for the most part. They've been a staple of the genre and remained virtually unchanged since first edition for a reason. There's a lot of things I've gone out of my way to say are broken in 6th edition. Multipowers are not on this list.