Doc Democracy

In most of my campaigns, having up to five invisible, intangible, STR 65 enforcers would make you pretty much the Man. i would be thinking of how you prevent blast attacks...

Episode 2: The PCs see that most of their home has been subsumed into the new home. Apart from the curtains and carpets, much of it remains what it was before. As it turns out Mr Wednesday was the man who was previously known as Mr Tuesday and was in charge of their old organisation. Mr Wednesday does not like to be reminded of his old name and warns the PCs off of looking into the reasons behind the change or spreading rumours or bad news.

I lived for much of my life in Glasgow (55 degrees N) and personally I think the changing is more hassle than it is worth, I understand the safety issues on both sides - for us the kids are either going to school in the dark or coming home in the dark...which is why I think we need to split the difference and stop all this chopping and changing. Doc

My solution is a compromise. When we get to Spring next year, everyone puts their clocks forward 30 minutes and then we leave it there forever... Doc

Lucius picked up on the invisibility and the DEX issue - I was more concerned about the STR. if the advantage is +2 and the active points spent equals 32 then you are only talking 16 STR?? I would have thought you wanted their STR to be reasonably high to be able to restrain even the action of mega-STR characters. That was what I was thinking would be your biggest expense. I note Lucius took you to XDM. It is an option that can be rolled out to almost every situation. You do get a problem in using a power like that as the players might decide to pick up and move to a dimension where you did not utilise that power. The big issue is about what the players can do about it. Moving dimension also suggests that there is a dimension where it did happen and that might be the dimension the players choose to game in... As a one-off where there is a maguffin the heroes can find and a way for them to be aware of the issue then this is a great thing to build. For a recurring villain or organisation, the players will get tired of it very quickly. Doc PS: I know I promised some actual numbers but I have not yet gotten around to digging out 5th Edition.

I think retribution would be more likely for defection the higher up the hierarchy you might have been. Lay members would not risk anything, initiates might depend on circumstances, priests and above might have to think hard... However, apostasy was not what i was wanting to focus on. I was thinking more about the impacts on the organisation should people leave. If several people leave the local temple, would initiates and priests find it more difficult to cast magic?? Would priests that gouge the local worshippers for their own gain face trouble from above?

It would be worth you building those duplicates to see if you need 450 points. They are going to be pretty one-dimensional as they are, after all, simply shards of a central consciousness and not going to be doing much beyond a responsive role. You might find that they need OCV/DCV and STR (advantaged to work while intangible), SPD, invisibility, intangibility and then some awareness skills and senses. HERO separates out the various ways of attacking etc, have you thought of whether this power would affect opponents that were using abilities unknown to your NPC? say a mentalist was attacking using funky psionic abilities. Would the power have some effect against that? If so, you would need these soul shards to be able to notice the attack, defend against it and hit back. Doc

I love the idea of a God's HR department devising a complaints policy and how to ensure everyone gets the right notification and training on the new "Respect Rules". :-)

I am thinking that if the group misuses its members then there should be a consequence on the group. There should be something that drives the group to play straight with its members. In the real world this does not happen but in a fantasy context it should be possible. A schism should be something the organisation dreads because it should have actual consequences, like tainting the source of its power.

I am thinking of setting up a fantasy game where the key power resides in Glorantha-like cults. Characters affiliate with these groups to acquire protection, training, powers and influence. Their are god-like beings at the top of these groups (not quite decided on their nature yet) and a priestly hierarchy. You can be excommunicated from these groups with all the loss of privileges that might attract as well the spirits of retribution. These are pretty well described in many settings and stories. This is part of the asymmetric power structure of these things. i was wondering if anyone has any thoughts of how someone disavowing themselves of a group, for good moral/philosophical reasons should feedback to the group, cause it difficulties and give it an incentive to retain and treat its members well. Doc

It all depends on how many duplicates you have. In HERO, each character buys how many actions they get in a 12 second turn (their speed). There is a question in my mind that, even if you have trigger whether your telekinesis would attend to, for example three heroes attacking you on the same segment of a turn, they would, in effect, overload the power. If you had five duplicates hanging around, each with for or five actions each, then it would be very difficult for a team to overload in the same way. Obviously, each duplicate would not always be able to act instantly but it is likely there would always be one with an action available. It would require many more heroes to overload the power and, the more duplicates you have, the more difficult overloading would become. Doc

If you were to do this, I think I would be paying extra for each duplicate to be different from the core character - you could then design them from the ground up. It would work better in combat as each duplicate/follower would have their own allocation of actions during a round rather than everything having to work from the main characters actions. Hyper-Man - i did not even think to question - with the points being thrown around I presumed an NPC, possibly a villain, possibly a third party who gets involved at times with their own agenda. Doc

This might even be a great use for duplication where duplicates are not the same as the core character but shards of consciousness flaking off to deal with foreseen eventualities in the same invisible, intangible, affecting solid world manner.... Doc

There is lot going on here, and I think that is not unusual if you are throwing around 4-500 active points on a single power. :-) I was looking at the builds and, while they all make some sense, there is an element of hand-waviness about much of it. I was thinking that it is almost like he has a vast number of slavishly devoted elves flying about ensuring things go right for him. Then I thought, why not build it that way. It gets around the trigger, reset type thing. What if four people act, in the same segment, to foil his plans? Can the teleport act four times in the same segment? Is it possible for a power to be making decisions about what it does? If instead, the build was based around followers, invisible, intangible, representatives of his mind (if they are all mind-linked they can act as if they knew what he was thinking) that flock round him, steadying vases, moving obstacles, blocking doors and restraining hands. They would need affect solid on their STR but there is less stretch to the remit of the power. I think with 450 active points in play you will get enough of them to cover mist eventualities... Doc

I have never met a player who, if they can make themselves and their buddies silent and invisible while able to see and hear their opponents would not exploit that to the maximum....

I am going to make a suggestion here that has become a bit of a joke on the boards because it gets used in so many ways. However, the effect you are looking for stretches the system in so many different directions, it might be a cleaner build. I am going to suggest extra-dimensional movement. I am going to suggest that the power moves the hero, and any other he chooses slightly in some way such that they become invisible to the normal senses of others. They are physically present and would be affected by attacks, if those happened to be in the right location. You would need an appropriate sense to be able to see others, and to grant to others you bring with you. Haven't got my books but will try to post actual numbers later. This does come close to a big HERO no-no. You should not use a mechanic like XDM to replicate the effect of an existing mechanic, like Invisibility. I think your effect is far enough from the core invisibility mechanic that we are justified in using it here. Doc

I think you misunderstood the rules there. You quoted "Limited range can't be greater than half the power's normal range". You have taken that to mean you cannot reduce the range by more than half the power's normal range. What it means is, if the normal range is 75", the limited range can be no greater than 37.5". You can have any range that you want under 37.5". The reason there is to stop players shaving the range imperceptibly and getting essentially free discounts. Doc

I dont think it would be a limitation. Once you have a power that is imposed rather than accepted, I think you are looking to buy it "usable as an attack". Then you take away any pretence of voluntary conversation. Doc

Hazel was often used as protection against witches. There might be a way of weaving hazel branches such that they confuse the flow of magic and provide a decent way of stopping them accessing their magic. Doc

You are wrong, there is a problem with the name, it has been demonstrated for years that there is a problem, hence it was changed to Blast in 6th edition. I know what you are saying, most of us here are adept at divorcing power name and game effect, not true of most people that we want to play the game.

Doesn't that sound just like an eclipse then? :-)

It is not quite that simple. If you running, when do you "take off" and how fast would you need to be going to maintain enough speed to escape earth's gravity. I can see running up a hill and getting to the top and going from there. It would all depend on the height of the hill I suspect... Doc

The game, through the editions has been slowly purging the SFX from the names of the powers. It helps to divorce the game mechanic you are buying from the special effect that you are trying to model. Once you have the idea of Energy Blast in your head, it is difficult to imagine it as a series of knives, or random thrown objects. There is still some way to go... I have been reading the rules again. Still not 100% convinced 6th can do this privacy field as well as 5th could. :-) Doc

The rules for this kind of thing did change in 6th edition. I will have to peruse the rules to see how I would do it there. In 5th edition, the stuff we are talking about works great. I will have to really sit down and read the 6th Edition Barrier rules. In 5th edition force wall - you could make your force wall essentially two way transparent to either energy or physical damage, The passage of the one not defended against by the barrier would not cause it to collapse. As 5th edition is what the OP is using - this is still valid but a quick scan of 6th suggests that Barrier is not the solution. Doc

You can set it to be transparent to either PD or ED. If you set it transparent to physical then people can walk through it without concern. Oh - and as for the static, the player can set himself to be the centre of the force wall and it would move with him. That is no cost. I think as GM, if the ability was through a focus, I would allow it to be centred on the focus. Doc