Steve Long

Ehhh, "initiative" is as good a shorthand for the subject as any. 1. If a character with a Mental Power chooses to act on his EGO to make an attack with that power, the Attack Action ends his Phase just like any other Attack Action would. After attacking he cannot make a Half Move or perform any other Actions other than those which take no time. 2. If a character buys extra SPD with a Limitation (such as Menton’s “Only To Use Mental/Telekinetic Powers”), and he Aborts one of his standard Phases to take a defensive action of any sort, the Phase lost is his very next one, whether it’s one of his standard Phases or one of his “extra,” Limited Phases. (The GM is, of course, free to change this rule based on the nature of his campaign, the special effect of the extra SPD, or the like.)

See 6E2 25 for the rules about enhancing STR with certain forms of movement.

In a Heroic game, Deadly Blow and Weaponmaster qualify as "added damage," and thus are subject to any restrictions the GM imposes re: not doing more than doubling the damage.

The issue of “defining the area to be Scanned” is one that’s left to the GM to handle with common sense, dramatic, and game balance sense. He should consider the following guidelines: —the area should be a fairly simple geometric shape, usually a circle. It shouldn’t look like a gerrymandered congressional district, nor should it have “hollow spaces” or unaffected areas in the middle. —the area shouldn’t be defined in such a way as to wreck the scenario and ruin everyone’s fun. Just like most GMs won’t let characters use Retrocognition or Telepathy to solve murder mysteries instantly, they probably won’t let characters use Mind Scan to find a villain (suspect, source of information, hot date...) instantly if finding the villain is a key element of the scenario. In the case of the scenario you describe — scanning an orbiting space station, or the Moon — the following considerations also apply: —6E1 261 restricts Mind Scan to a planetary level as a general rule; it specifically states that a character on Earth cannot Mind Scan the Moon. Whether Scanning for a mind in orbit is permissible is up to the GM, who may consider the region of geosynchronous orbit to be part of Earth as a whole (and thus require a Scan of the planetary population). —the International Space Station travels at the rate of about 5 miles per second, and other orbiting objects are also quite fast. Whatever area the character can reasonably define may not be enough to complete a Scan before the ISS is out of the area (or the GM may impose a penalty reflecting the high velocity).

It was simply an oversight.

No. You're not buying Flash "via" Mental Illusions. You're creating a Mental Illusion of "my senses are overwhelmed and I can't perceive anything!". I suggest you use the "Harmful Illusions" rules on 6E1 251 and simply consider a Flash effect (of however many Sense Groups) as equivalent to STUN damage for these purposes.

Yes — but since it’s a Mental Illusions the character can specify “all Sense Groups” if he wants to.

Absolutely -- just like a character with Blast 12d6 can choose to only fire a Blast 7d6 if he wants. It's possible to Limit an incremental power so that it can only be used at full strength, but that's pretty uncommon.

For our latest column, Ron and I tackle what turns out to be a rather controversial vigilante: the Scourge of the Underworld: Justice is served!

Adding STR to an HA or HKA does not increase the Active Points in the base Power for most purposes (for example, whether the base Power fits into a Power Framework, or how much of a Multipower’s reserve it uses up). However, there is at least one noteworthy exception: it is used for purposes of determining whether a naked Advantage applies to the attack. For example, suppose that a character has a naked Advantage: +1 STUN Multiplier (+¼) on any HKA up to 45 Active Points. If he buys an HKA 2d6 and has STR 30 (which adds +2d6, for a total of HKA 4d6, which would cost “60 Active Points”), then he can’t use the naked Advantage with that HKA unless he voluntarily restricts the overall attack to HKA 3d6 (“45 Active Points”). Note also that while the base Power’s Active Point total (and thus END cost) doesn’t increase, the character also has to pay END for any STR he uses. Thus, using the attack may wing up costing him the same (or nearly the same) END as if the base Power had a higher Active Point total.

As stated on 6E2 67, if an attacker Grabbing a character is Stunned or Knocked Out, the attacker lets go of the Grabbed character at the end of the Segment (unless he succeeds with an EGO Roll). A character who tries to escape before the end of the Segment (and thus before that EGO Roll is made) still has to succeed against the attacker’s full STR being used to perform the Grab. However, also as noted on 6E2 67, the GM may choose to reduce the Grabbing STR even if the attacker succeeds with his EGO Roll, so he may likewise choose to reduce the Grabbing STR before the end of the Segment.

Only by making a Multiple Attack. Regardless of whether a character has Extra Limbs, the rules for Grabbing more than two limbs on 6E2 65 apply.

See 6E2 67.

See 6E1 167.

See 6E1 136, left column.

That's your call as GM. If you haven't already, I'd suggest starting a thread about this in the Discussion forum. I expect you'll get plenty of opinions and suggestions. My only observation would be this: why use Fixed/Floating Fixed Locations at all? None of the published examples of this sort of power involve them -- they simply put a Limitation on the Teleportation that it only works from one large enough pool of shadow to another. I don't really see F/FFL as necessary at all (but of course I don't know all the specifics of the player's idea).

Let me rephrase that question for clarity: Can a character use a Variable Power Pool to apply a naked Advantage to STR, a power, or the like? The answer is on 6E1 314.

The point totals for the Size Templates are correct. See 6E1 284 re: the cost of Reach. Even if you wanted to add Persistent (which isn't necessary), the cost would remain the same. As for the calculation of Gigantic Hands And Feet, I'll use the Gigantic Template: It's a +1/4 Advantage on 80 Active Points = 20 points, to which a +1/2 Advantage is applied = 30 points. Hope that helps!

Ron Edwards and I continue the fun with a look at the Miller run on Daredevil: Irish Rage, Catholic Guilt

That's entirely up to your GM. I'd allow it myself, since I think it's a cool "Duplication trick," but other GMs may disagree.

First -- sorry I moved this without leaving a note in the Rules Questions forum. Forgot to click the little box. My answers: 1. Since you can actually recover the ability to use a spell, it probably shouldn't have the Limitation Charges at all. Or if it does, it should have Recoverable Charges (6E1 372), which would probably resolve your issue. Just work out a way with the GM for your character to recover used spells that he finds acceptable, and you're set. 2. Alternately, ditch Charges and create a custom Limitation (with the GM's help, of course). Something like "Cannot Use Spell More Than Once Unless He [Does So-and-So]," with the value of course being much less than 1 Charge. That seems a bit cheesy and I'm not sure I'd allow it in my own games, but not all campaigns and GMs are the same. 3. This really sounds more like an issue of magic system design than power construction. Assuming this character is part of a setting that has a magic system at all, the rules for the system itself could allow for "spell recovery" without that needing to be built into each spell. (Or, the system could specify how to build it into a spell.) Hope that helps. Herophiles -- what ideas do you have?

See 6E2 87.

OK, I have to admit that’s the thought of Diving For Cover with Tunneling had never occurred to me. If a character has Tunneling with the Fill In Adder and uses it to Dive For Cover, even if he fails to get outside the Area of the attack the filled in substance would still shield him just like any other form of cover. So the attack would have to penetrate that substance before the character’s subjected to the remaining damage. For example, in the case of ordinary dirt, each cubic meter has 0 PD, 4 ED, and 10 BODY (see 6E2 171), so the attack would have to get through that before affecting the character.

If a character uses a Dispel against a power that’s been granted to the target via some form of Usable On Others, use the Active Points in the power as it’s been granted, not the Active Points in the overall power the grantor bought. For example, suppose a character uses Invisibility to Sight Group, Usable Simultaneously (up to 8 recipients; +1) to give one of his friends the power to become invisible. In that case the Active Point target for a Dispel is 20 (the cost of Invisibility to Sight Group), not 40 (the cost of the overall UOO power).

1. No, that’s not legal — though of course any given GM can allow whatever he wants, regardless of what the rulebook says. TUS/HSS does suggest, for example, that allowing Limitations on low-cost CSLs for -0 value might work in some situations. Keep in mind also that in 6E, OCV and DCV are Characteristics. Therefore you could buy, for example, +3 OCV, Only Versus Orc or +3 DCV, Requires An Acrobatics Roll using the Characteristics Power. That’s much easier than monkeying around with CSL. 2. Yes, you could buy a high-cost CSL and Limit it that way — but again, buying Limited OCV and/or DCV may work better in many situations.