Steve Long

Re: Follower - Selling Back DEX, STR and movement 1. Nothing in the rules prevents a Follower from selling back Characteristics or the like (and getting points for it) — if that were the case, it wouldn’t be possible to buy many animals as Followers, for example. But of course the GM should approve any sell-backs, and regardless of selling back the minimum cost of the Follower is 1 Character Point. 2. A character with STR 0 can sell back the full amount of any form of movement if desired, and receive the full value for selling back.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? OK, I'll give you that, LL. I don't have to do anything along those lines. In fact, I can use existing mythological characters -- Tezcatlipoca, Baykok, et al. -- as an example of adapting a given concept to a given setting ("Here's one version of this guy, showing how he's represented in the Champions Universe").

Re: CSL for unarmed combat If a character wants to buy CSLs to apply to all unarmed Combat Maneuvers, he has to buy 5-point CSLs, since that's a "Large Group" of attacks as defined on 6E1 71. If you wanted to adopt a more precisely gradated series of CSLs such as is discussed in HSS, it would be a 6-point CSL most likely ("all unarmed HTH combat" being a pretty broad subset of "all combat"), but most campaigns don't need to go that far.

Re: Reduced Endurance and VPPs Like any other naked Advantage, this one requires the GM’s permission, but aside from that there’s nothing in the rules that would per se prevent a character from buying it. The cost would be calculated to take into account the Pool power with the largest possible Active Points. For example, for a VPP 60 Pool + 40 Control Cost, the largest possible Active Point total, as indicated by the Control Cost, is 40 Active Points. Therefore a naked Advantage to cover any possible VPP slot would have to be bought to apply to 40 Active Points: Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) for any VPP power of up to 40 Active Points (total cost: 20 points).

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Well, sometimes that's necessary, since myths and legends aren't always as accomodating as we want-specific-details-on-everything gamers would like. For example, a lot of gods aren't all that well described visually, so when writing them up I have to consult what artists of the past have done (if anything) and give some thought to how I think the god should look. Another example: in Norse mythology, Freya's primarily the goddess of love and beauty, but she's also a war-goddess who gets half the dead from battles. Being a war-goddess implies some ability to fight and some skill with arms, though no myth describes Freya doing anything close to fighting. So I have to decide what will work best for gaming purposes in terms of giving her a weapon, combat Skills, and so on. I have to balance the lack of information against getting too extravagant. Such is the life of a game supplement writer.

Re: Ifrit You can find a character sheet for an ifrit on HSB 156.

Re: Combining Haymakers No; a character has to choose one or the other to apply to a given attack.

Howdy folx! It's Thursday, so it's time for the weekly chat! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to hear the latest news, ask questions, and talk Hero!

Howdy folx! It's Thursday, so it's time for the weekly chat! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to hear the latest news, ask questions, and talk Hero!

Howdy folx! It's Thursday, so it's time for the weekly chat! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to hear the latest news, ask questions, and talk Hero!

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? I doubt it. If I have enough information and interest to write about a pantheon, it's goin' in the book. Only if I later acquired a source not currently available to me would that be possible, and even then I'd have to have the interest and time to do it.

Re: Teleportation Gates and Close Combat I think this is entirely up to the GM. Assuming a character somehow has enough Reach to make a HTH attack through a Gate against a target on the other side, I'd certainly let him do it.

Re: SPD, END, and Time Chart Penalties I don't consider that a strange result at all. A is doing more, so it's logical he'd tire out more quickly. He also accomplishes 50% more toward completing his task in the same amount of time than B does. The problem here, it seems to me, is that you're establishing a flat time to complete the task -- 1 Hour, regardless of any other consideration. A more "realistic" way to approach it, that I suspect would address the problem you're having here, is to measure how long the task takes in Phases of effort. Suppose a task takes a normal, SPD 2, person 6 Hours of total effort. That's 10 Phases of effort per minute for 360 minutes, or 3,600 Phases' work. Someone trying to do it in an hour would need to compress 3,600 Phases of effort into the 3,600 seconds in an hour -- in other words, he'd need SPD 12. A quick-and-dirty way to handle that instead of using the standard Time Chart penalties is to look at the difference between the SPD required and the SPD the character actually has — subtract the latter from the former to get a Skill Roll penalty. Thus, a SPD 6 character could do this if he succeeds with his Skill Roll at a (12 - 6 =) -6 penalty. That may be way too simplistic for some campaigns, and/or make it too easy for characters to accomplish things quickly, but it will eliminate the concern you’re having I think. If nothing else I suppose this'll make a good paragraph for APG3, if we ever do an APG3.

Re: Further Questions on using CSL & PSL. They're not "split" -- they apply to the attack as a whole. That's why they have to be able to apply to any power/weapon/whatever used in the attack. Multiple Attacks are complicated enough already without having to re-calculate CV every shot to take differing CSLs and whatnot into account.

Re: Hardened (and Impenetrable) Resistant If a character makes his PD or ED Hardened (and/or Impenetrable), and also buys Resistant (+½) to make his PD or ED Resistant, he must buy Hardened (and/or Impenetrable) for the naked Resitant (+½) Advantage as well.

It's Thursday, so it's chat night! It's our annual Halloween chat, so there'll be candy to hand out, a Foxbat Costume Contest, and more more more! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to join the fun!

It's Thursday, so it's chat night! It's our annual Halloween chat, so there'll be candy to hand out, a Foxbat Costume Contest, and more more more! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to join the fun!

It's Thursday, so it's chat night! It's our annual Halloween chat, so there'll be candy to hand out, a Foxbat Costume Contest, and more more more! Come on by the Chat Room at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific to join the fun!

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Lies! I have a couple of ex-girlfriends who make him look like a pantywaist.

Re: Shape Shift and Transform I’m going to expand your question a bit, since it has implications beyond the one Power you’ve focused on: Q: How does Transform interact with Body-Affecting Powers such as Multiform, Shape Shift, Shrinking, and Stretching? If an attacker Transforms a character into, say, a frog, does that deprive him of the ability to Multiform/Shape Shift back into human form, use Growth, or the like? A: That’s going to depend on the specific Body-Affecting Power involved, but in many cases the answer is “Yes.” Unless the GM rules otherwise, a character cannot use Multiform or Shape Shift to “negate” a Transform by changing shape back to his normal form (though the Transform could specify that as a “heal back” condition, in which case it would be allowed). As an attack, the Transform in effect “locks” the target into the defined shape (or condition) until the Transform heals back. Whether other Body-Affecting Powers work is up to the GM, though usually they will since they don’t reverse the Transform per se. A character Transformed into a rabbit could Stretch his body, Duplicate to become multiple rabbits, using Growth or Shrinking to change his size while in rabbit form, and so on.

Re: Change Environment with Multiple Varying Effects Under the 6E rules there's no need for an Adder to have multiple combat effects in a single Change Environment power -- you just buy what you want. You can then apply Varying Combat Effects to switch them around as desired.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Folx, let's not waste any more time on the subject of angels and saints, please. If it seems feasible, I'll probably include an angel or three in the Demonology section. That's about it. I have no intention of including any saints; I have enough to do already. No need to hash it out further.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Thanx for the suggestions, Andrew. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to add these to the book given the amount of work I've already got ahead of me, but I'll look into it.

Re: Simulating a Mental Attack and Targeting Yes, that still applies. The only ways for an attack to ignore a Barrier (or a barrier) is (a) for the rules to specifically state that they do, or ( to use Indirect to bypass it. Even an ordinary Mental Power doesn’t necessarily “ignore” a Barrier (or barrier). The real issue there is whether the B(b)arrier is opaque, and thus blocks Line Of Sight to prevent mental targeting. The fact that the B(b)arrier isn’t built with Mental Defense isn’t necessarily determinative of the issue. However, the GM is certainly free to change any of this if he feels some other rule would be more appropriate for his campaign. In a campaign with heavy emphasis on psionics, treating an AVAD-and-ACV power as equivalent to Mental Powers in other ways is certainly a valid “house rule.”

Re: Using CSL and PSL with Multiple Attacks The rules on 6E2 77 discuss how CSLs (and by extension relevant PSLs) apply to Multiple Attack. As noted there, the character you're describing could apply his All Combat CSLs and his Range PSLs, but not his Pistol CSLs (because they cannot apply to one of the attacks involved). If you still have questions after reviewing those rules, please feel free to post a follow-up.