Doc Democracy

Re: help with limitations Hmm. An alternative way to think about this. It sounds to me like you have a contact, a perk and a Watched complication. The contact is obviously God and you can get in touch with him to request favours at certain times. Obviously as a God, the favours he is able to bestow can be biggies. If you get in touch too often and do not do the stuff he likes to see you do then there is less chance of getting favours but if you are measured in how often you call and do lots of the kind of stuff you are supposed to, when you do call it is more likely to be more useful. So what about the perk? Well, religions normally come in hierarchies and if you are at the lowliest level of the hierarchy then you can only really expect pretty minor stuff. If you are initiated then you can expect more. Adepts get more, Priests even more and Arch-priests might command miracles. As GM you have carte blanche to hand things out but the perk gives you a baseline of power level and the contact bureaucracy allows you to amend that depending on whether the priest is currently in favour or not.... Doc

Re: Knockout Gas But if we were seeking realism (always dangerous in what is often a cinematic style of game) there is no sluggishness associated with only being on 3 STUN 3 END. You function totally normally unless you use too much END. Sluggishness to me would mean moving more slowly, thinking more slowly and being less effective in agility type stuff or even just seeing it. Neither of the current builds achieves that. Doc

Re: Knockout Gas There is little point in arguing this Christopher. It is not like a rules argument. If you are of the opinion that you can suddenly awake then you build to that and if you think you should wake up sluggish (0 STUN, 0 END) and then recover to full then you build to that. I think we are both clear on where our perception of the world sits. Doc

Re: Knockout Gas I agree. If life was more like HERO, things would be so much easier to understand, we could just lift the corner and look at the numbers and the build used to see what needs to be sorted out...

Re: Knockout Gas I agreed with you until the last line. I know that when I wake up I am not on the verge of exhaustion and I have leapt out of bed, grabbed a stick and run down stairs when I thought I heard an intruder...

Re: Knockout Gas

Re: Knockout Gas if you feel the need to model stuff in HERO, then this might indeed be the model for going to sleep. :-)

Re: Knockout Gas to me, it is about the circumstances. This is not knockout. This is sleeping. Being aware and able to wake up is a feature of sleeping rather than unconsciousness. It has been demonstrated that sleeping people remain aware of their surroundings, the brain just chooses not to take any notice. Doc

Re: Knockout Gas tried editing, didn't work. Didn't take halved effect into account. So cost may be an issue. Will look at making 3D6 constant - extended exposure makes effect more likely

Re: Knockout Gas Hmm. Costs - here is one build proposed above Sleep Gas Grenades (65 active, 24 real): Blast 4d6, Constant (+1/2), Area Of Effect (16m Radius; +3/4), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (ED; All Or Nothing; LS: Gas, Holding Breath; +1); OAF (-1), 4 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Turn each (-1/2), Limited Range (Throwing distance only; -1/4) This gas will hang about for a turn and do an average of 14 STUN as long as victims had no LS or were not holding their breath. It can be used four times a day. This is unlikely to knock anyone out unless they stay in the area of effect. Victims will recover as normal. Here is an alternate build. Sleep Gas Grenades (90 active, 33 real): 4d6 Suppress, 0 END (+1/2; effect ends when victim actively woken up e.g. by vigorous shaking), Area Of Effect (16m Radius; +3/4), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (All Or Nothing; LS: Gas, Holding Breath; +0); OAF (-1), Can only be used four times a day (-1/2), Limited Range (Throwing distance only; -1/4) This suppresses, on average, 28 STUN unless someone has LS or is holding their breath. It will put most non supers to sleep immediately and they will remain that way until they are woken up. It is limited to four uses per day. I don't think cost is an issue unless point caps are in use.

Re: Knockout Gas No more than other solutions - just different ones. I think this achieves a feel that an EB based solution does not.

Re: Knockout Gas Not often anyone is able to do this to you Christopher but

Re: Knockout Gas Actully I was using an existing rule. I had suggested the suppress be 0 END and shaking the victim would be a reasonably common way to stop the effect.

Re: Knockout Gas The thing is that you have the situation where someone that is very resistant to being knocked out in combat is also very resilient against the sleep gas. Those things may often go hand in hand but sometimes they do not. You also have the situation where, if someone does not go to sleep that they can be knocked out more easily. Again, that may fit the concept in some cases and not in others. The final point is that if the gas knocks someone out by taking them to -3 STUN they will only be asleep about three or four seconds and then will wake up (gain positive STUN). I think that I might be looking at putting in an all or nothing type effect with continuing effects. I might consider STUN suppress continuous uncontrolled. That would see someone either go down or not and would then keep them down for a specified period of time. The suppress might last the amount of time fed in through END or could be bought to 0 END and given a time period that could be disrupted by someone vigorously shaking the victim to wake them up. There are always a number of ways to do things and you need to think carefully about what effects you want to achieve. Doc

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX heh - a limited limitation! I think I may have done this in the past. I reckon I would have been willing to take -0 if I could see some minor advantages to it. The build you propose would be acceptable in that I would be accepting detriment that is offset by being able to purchase the 2 levels with dodge I will need when my powers disappear. Doc

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX Really? I would have said that losing two powers for the price of one was never a minor inconvenience. I do not think that I would ever, as a player, accept a -0 limitation that did not in some way provide a minor advantage to counter the minor inconvenience... Maybe that is just me. Doc

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX If you take the unified power at -0, what are the advantages that offset the problems you get with relevant SFX??

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX I think what was interesting was not that the elemental control could be built more expensively but that, given the opportunity for a cost break that was not formalised in a framework, the limitation is not used.

Re: Tags

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX That is an interesting observation. Would be a good idea to look at any recent villains to see what the use is as it was there to provide usage after the EC framework was removed in sixth edition. If it is not getting used it is evidence that the EC was indeed an unnecessary framework and used simply as a point saving vehicle... Doc

Re: VPPs and Variable SFX Hmmm. This is, on the face of it, either a very simple or a very complex issue. It is simple because the rules are quite explicit. You choose the mechanic and live with it. However, the downside of that is that it can lead to inconsistency in play that ruins the 'feel' of a character. It is complex because you want to make the game feel 'real' and thus are adjusting on the fly. The downside of this being that you need a complicated mix of mechanics that reflect the costs of how the GM might adjust the system to reflect game reality in the future. Personally I think that the purpose of unified power is to reflect a pool of energy that can be used in a variety of ways. Even if the SFX of the powers are unrelated pulling at one aspect of that power means that it affects everything sourced from there. That means that MagicMan decides that his powers are linked because they draw from a magical pool. When he is using his magical fire and someone seeks to drain that power then the GM looks and decides that this is a magical power with fire SFX, not a fire power. As such, the power is not drained but, using the long standing bit on SFX being able to give minor bonuses or penalties, would dampen the effectiveness of the magical fire - telling the person draining it that this in not normal fire - it is magic and that is hampering the effectiveness of the power they chose. So to me - it is simple - give a bit and fall back on the rules... Doc

Re: Miracles vs Magic: The Faith Reserve Not thought carefully about this but I have something in my head whereby the END reserve is increased depending on what 'miracles' yuou have access to. Some very useful miracles might carry a small amount of END reserve with them while other 'purer' miracles that are for advancing the deity's agenda might carry more END reserve. This might encourage priests of certain deities to carry miracles that would, from a gamer's perspective, not be worth the points... Doc

Re: Alternate History Trooper Loadout? If you want it to be obviously different then why not look for a brand name that is not associated with weaponry today but some corporate decision in 1985 caused, for example, Chevrolet to take up handgun manufacture? So you might have a 45 calibre Chevvy Sabre as a sidearm. Doc

Re: How to make a Spirit Material. Yeah - if it is just the form that changes (with no significant power changes) then Shape Shift is probably the core power - possibly limited by something like (can only change when entering the material plane...) Doc

Re: How to make a Spirit Material. I like Sean's approach. I can see any player having between one and three character sheets depending on where they are able to go. When materialising on the physical plane I presume that the same form would materialise each time? What interests me here is whether Plane Walkers would be able to perceive other Plane Walkers and whether attacks with a trans-dimensional advantage might be able to attack another form (presuming that the walker inhabits all three planes at the same time). Doc