Welcome, new players and old!

You're right about the 'no range' limitation - that's changed from DC Heroes 3rd edition for sure. To use the 15APs Flame Project with Dex or Weaponry and treat it as a Sword made of flame it'd be no range and no av (-2 total) so it means the burnout can go (same cost in other words).

Not sure how much I can get done, but will do a couple of updates. It's just past 5am and my eyeballs are falling out of my head Just tonight (Saturday) to grind through then 3 days off. Next week and week after should be good for updates daily as I have plenty of days off

Admin, do not overstrain yourself. Go to sleep if you need to; we can wait.
Also, I sent you the redesigned Kyoko based on discussions here and also some suggestions you made in the thread. If it is acceptable, it is up to you if we use the new version immediately, or wait until after this adventure.

You might have some trouble banishing the sword Dee. The entity that controls it's powers is pretty powerful. My character only gets a fraction of its ability. The reason that I think Mistrust is appropriate is that while Stormbreaker has kept under the radar as far as hero work goes for the most part, he isn't infallible. He does lots of breaking and entering and has left a string of crimes behind himself. So in addition to having a big spot light for swinging around a sword, theres an active investigation into his past activities with no specific suspect yet.. I fully intend to have the full force of that drawback come after me though. It's part of the fun I think

Dunecat, I have not seen the character or his sword yet, but I would think banishing it would not be difficult. While it's powers might be controlled by an entity that has greater, the sword would still be bond by what was created for it, and if that does not include a means back, it would be stuck, unless there was a bonus or other reason for it to return. However, while that would not be hard part, that does not make it easy. The difficult part would be overcoming the wielder, since I would doubt you would simply stand by and let Kyoko do so! And she is one of the easier people in the game to defeat. Her inititative is not high, and with a 5 for Dexterity and Body, she can be rendered unconscious with a single shot in many cases.

But on a more serious note, that is not ever likely to be a problem for either of us. I am not a fan of PC-PC conflict, beyond the verbal or social, so am more likely to look for reasons to avoid such a thing than to get into one. And to that extent, I did go ahead and add Mistrust to Kyoko as well, so she can more easily accept it from others.

But I agree with you on the nature of drawbacks. If they are taken, then yes, they should come into use, and I would also want to see them in play. The points gained and used for powers are used all the time, so it is not fair to expect them not to be in play as well. But more importantly, drawbacks really do define a character as much or more than any other mechanical aspect, of the game, so I would want to see them come up in play!

Frostbite stifled a curse. Clearly whoever this man was - and it seemed clear to the hero that he was no random individual - he was trained in the hunting down of people like him!

OOC That he is! The street is fairly long, ordinary shops and shoppers out and about on a typical week day and unaware of the unfolding drama... Joe raises no suspicions from them but the man with the device is interested/baffled for the moment. He's watching and keeping pace with Joe as he walks some 20m away. One more thing...Roll 8,9 (17) Success...

Suddenly 'Modern Joe' said a single word 'Wandafar'
.

Just for the newbies, Wandafar was my character way back when. He's an alien, if memory serves correctly, short, squat and bald. He had vibratory powers back when we used the Golden Hero rules and energy blasters sucked. He could fire off his blast for two rounds and then run around popping guys in the nose for 1d6 for three rounds while waiting for his energy blast to re-charge. Energy Blast - 15d6, can use a max of 10d6, takes five rounds to recharge.
He was also a scientist type.



Now I remember, he crashlanded on Earth in an escape pod. The government took him in and gave him a secret ID working at a government think tank. He claimed to be Swedish or Norwegian.

DavidMcMahon wrote:
Now I remember, he crashlanded on Earth in an escape pod. The government took him in and gave him a secret ID working at a government think tank. He claimed to be Swedish or Norwegian.[/color]

So good to meet and old PC - NPC, we had some fun with Wandafar, be interesting to see how things have moved on.

Sj

It is a clever way of integrating past characters.
I am assuming he looked human, or human enough. ^_^

Been so long since I played him. I think he was freaking out because there was some kind of Predator/Alien type creature on an oil rig, that could breed like crazy and kill everyone on the planet if not stopped quick enough. I think that was one of our last adventures with him. I think we won.


Yeah, he looked human. Short human. About 5'5" or so. Think bald dwarf. Heavy gravity planet.

Next post will be Red Dragons' debut. Keep an eye out later today Jason, need to his sack now (01.22am, doh)

No problem Paul whenever you're back in the world of the living will be fine.

First post for Red Dragon is up, everyone else, update tomorrow (including Lore Knights)

Draft version 2 of the Character - some tweaking, added an attraction to do good but will look at the suggestions of the other players and amend to suit. He gains Dex, Strength an Regeneration so he heals (much) faster, something I figure a hand to hand fighter needs. Any changes you want to make, feel free to point them out. As mentioned (many times!) first two issues are characters 'in the making' before everything is set in stone and we carry on from there.

So, for people to know about combat/turns. As mentioned before you have 4 seconds in a turn/round/phase, in that time you may make 3 actions, two Auto actions and one dice action. Auto actions are things such as speaking more then a handful of words, activating protective powers such as forcefield and movement, including all normal movement powers. Dice actions are any actions that take a roll, attacks, stealth, attempting to persuade or influence someone using the charisma skill.

I should also point out that any movement actions used at over 9 APs (Speed of sound) produce an automatic area of effect attack as a shockwave. The attack functions at each AP over the speed of sound you travel. If I understand that right, a character with say.. 13 Aps of superspeed can produce a 4 Ap AoE as part of their normal automatic action, in ADDITION to a normal dice action.. Yes I'm looking at you Lionheart.

There are some other exceptions, for instance anyone with the dodging subschool of acrobatics can ADD their acrobatics to Dex to avoid attacks by giving up their dice action in a turn. I think that's the only two real important exceptions in the group currently.

Hope that helps a little. Cheers!

Red Dragon...

Red Dragon looks very very nice!!

Hey Dunecat thanks for the update on rules and movement and actions, for those of us who've never played let alone read the rules, this is great. Love the picture btw.

Sj

Paul - just looking at the character he looks great one thing we talked about thieving skills but he doesn't seem to have any. Read the start up post I'll reply later today.

Thanks everyone else for liking the drawing I did it on Hero machine 3.0 which is free over the net. I coloured it myself as the generator hasn't got a large selection of colours. By the way his wings are supposed to be fire not feathers just couldn't find a set on the system that looked any better.

Jason

Dunecat, the sonic boom effect starts at movement speed-8 APs, so at a speed of 9 or more. So, 13APs would create a 5AP shockwave, not a 4AP shockwave. However, I would strongly recommend people do ~not~ do that. Besides the fact that property damage is not very heroic, there are two other things to consider. The first is that it is an area affect and so it affects heroes and innocent bystanders as well as villains. And the second thing to consider is that as it is an environmental effect, rather than a player's action/attack, I believe it is considered Killing damage, not Bashing, and thus, doing so intentionally would cause one to forfeit all hero points for the adventure. However, that is the DM's call, and he might have a different view on it. It is just a consideration to make though.

jason, I like the picture. It reminds me of the armor Dracula wore in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

deeyin wrote:Dunecat, the sonic boom effect starts at movement speed-8 APs, so at a speed of 9 or more. So, 13APs would create a 5AP shockwave, not a 4AP shockwave. However, I would strongly recommend people do ~not~ do that. Besides the fact that property damage is not very heroic...

He Deeyin thanks for the heads up, whilst this sounded like a really cool side effect to speed, there is no way that either I nor Lionheart would intentionally do this, if we knew better - except for exceptional circumstances.

In any case thanks for the heads up, out of interest how is this handled with people like Flash and Superman, in the rules. Is there a way to achieve such speeds and mitigate the sonic boom effect?

Thanks

Sj

Has the feel of johny storms nova power. Powerful but deadly and only used as a last desperate act.

SJ, there are ways to mitigate it. The first is to simply lower your speed to 8 when anyone or anything is very close, since that is below the threshhold and will not cause a booom. As mentioned, that is a quarter of a mile in 4 seconds, so it is likely fast enough for most situations, or at least enough to put you in a location where using the higher speed would not disturb anything. The second way is the dispersal power. Each AP of dispersal negates one 1AP of the sonic boom side-effect. Powers that mimic dispersal, like sorcery, would also work, so in a team up, that is an option. Ppresumably, a bonus to your flight or speed that it does not cause the booms would also be a possibility. Finally, I have seen some of the writeups for characters on the dc heroes yahoo group (where I met the Admin). On one of the Flash writeups, they used the Flame Immunity Power with a +2FC bonus that it affected the friction of his speed, negating gthe sonic boom (each AP of his Flame immunity negated ! AP of the boom effect), and a -2CS limitation that his power did not actually protect him from fire or flame. That seems like a reasonable way of handling it.

I do stress though, that the Admin has not declared anything official on how he handles the sonic booms. It is his perogative to say it is bashing rather than killing damage, although that would still not solve the problem of collateral damage, and would be a problem for anyone with an irrational attraction to doing good, upholding laws, and similar things.

I would suspect that air control or some kind of sound nullifying power could be used as well. Air control could be used to adjust or possibly magnify the sonic boom via controling the medium it travels through (air), Obviously any sound nullifying power would cancel out a sonic boom. The one reason I suggested it for Lionheart is that he is in fairly dire straits, surrounded by 24+ solders and on 2/10 body. Team attacks can get really brutal with just 3 or so opponents, never mind over 20. It would only take 3 column shifts to have the likely 4-5 AP rifles dealing damage in the 9-10 range, which is on par with his body. Just some food for thought about fighting multiple opponents, or when fighting as a group against a greater foe.

As an aside, is there any chance of getting a reworked stormbreaker sheet kicked back to me some time soon? I know it needs more tweaking but I'd like to see how the points come out after being run through the builder.

Dunecat, that is a very good point on the air and sound powers also being likely to make a difference, and also on Lionheart’s situation. And as they have been shooting at him, if guns and knives are killing combat, then he would not forfeit all hero points earned, but only half. Still a very hard loss, but better than nothing. Personally though, I would still be wary of engaging in such a tactic and would look for a different way. It is not the guns that are hurting him after all, it was the sonic attack. However, his situation is not actually that dire. While a team attack makes it easier to hit him, team attacks do not affect damage nor resistance values. I believe you are thinking of multiattacks when one person tries to attack multiple opponents, as that does affect resistance values, but that is not the case here. So each individual attack would still be at the 4-5 range, and the bullets would still have to get through his Body + Force field (I believe he said it was up already?), which is an RV of 13. That is essentially impervious to conventional weaponry, and not possible for them to hurt him without many column shifts. Even without the force field, with a body of 10, those guns would be hard pressed to damage him at all.

Lionheart, since you do not plan on attacking and want to simply get into the castle, one option you might take is substituting your superspeed (boosted by power reserve) for your Dex. That would be a 13 Dex. And if you are dodging as you do so, you can add your acrobatics subskill's dodging score of 9 to it, so you would have a total OV of 22. Even team attacking, they would have very little chance to hit (The most a team attack can get igain is 4CS for 9+ individuals, and that would only bring your opposing value to a 12, likely much higher than their weaponry score. And even then, they would still be faced with trying to get through your resistance as described above. Superspeed does not give you additional actions (it is 2 auto actions and a dice action), but you could still do this in one round. (Auto: power reserve shunted to Superspeed. Dice: negated due to dodging. Auto: fly into castle). Your only real danger does not seem to be the men, but the sound.

However, I might be mistaken, but suppose he is intended to be captured here? I am not a comic book expert, but I thought a trope was often getting captured or defeated by the villain or opposition, only to break free and escape later? Or is that only James Bond? ^_^

And please note that I only mention this since you are new to the system. I am certainly not trying to tell you what to do! And if it is distracting, I will be quiet and just read along. Thank you!

That's a pretty standard plot device in the spy stories, and in comics. Still, no need to just give in. Gotta make the DM work for it right?

You make some great points Dee, I dont have my books on hand or I'd have checked all that. I was assuming that there could be more column shifts on AV for the super solders from team attacking.. which often results in Effect shifts. If it caps at +4 then your right, he should be ok.. though it wouldn't be impossible to assume that the solders are all working on a 9-10 AV, 4 shifts puts them up at 20ish. Still, this is a crunch light group so we should probably not get into the math to much.

On that note, the next important concept is column shifts.

All dice actions in the game are resolved by rolling 2d10 and comparing your activing value (AV) versues an Opposing Value (OV). The comparison is done using a great big chart that is in the book. You find where your acting value is on it, then find where the opposing value intersects, and the number listed at that point shows what you need to roll to be successful. If you happen to roll higher though, then you move further along your AV row and count the difference in columns. For instance, AV 10 vs OV 10 needs a roll of 11. If you roll 15 I believe that is 2 columns over, or 2 shifts.

The next part is getting your result, to do that, if your successfully land your attack (or perform your other action) you need to compare your effect value (EV) against the resistance value. (RV) Normally it's a straight up comparison if you land your hit. 6 EV vs 6 RV gets 2 or 3 result attribute points (RAPs), essentially you deal a couple points of damage. If however you gained column shifts then (And this is admittedly where I get a little fuzzy without a book infront of me.) I believe you use a lower effective EV to find your result. In the example I used, your 6 EV would be compared to your opponents 6 EV minus 2 columns. In otherwords they would resist as if they had a 2 RV, not a 6.

This can quickly become a huge equalizer for characters with an advantage in accuracy or speed. A single column shift can effectively reduce your opponents resistance by 2 or 3 APs, if each AP is worth 2x the previous level, cutting someones defence down like that leaves them with only 1/4 or 1/8 of their regular defensive capacity.

Hopefully this isn't turning into a bunch of greek for you guys. I'm trying to get into the nuts and bolts in little chunks that are easy to take in.

Dug out my The World at War DC Heroes supplement. It's copyrighted 1991, so I don't know if it is version two or version three. But the powers listed for the Golden Age Flash are: Superspeed 24; Air Control 7; Dispersal 12; Dimension Travel 8. And he has the limitation that Air Control, Dispersal and Dimension Travel only work while superspeed is in effect.

Ah, just found out it is for second edition.

Dimension Travel probably is listed for his ability to travel from Earth Two to Earth One and a couple of other Earths.
Air Control is really for him creating wind funnels and vaccums with his powers
Dispersal is for vibrating through solid objects and I guess to counter any sonic bombs he might create. Though Air Control might be considered for eliminating this too.

What is the range on these area attacks? Superman always zips into his apartment flying at superspeed, faster than the eye can follow, for example, and he doesn't bust anything doing it.


Then again, the GM can just wave it and say it is part of the ability of Superspeed to decide if he wants a damaging sonic boob or not while running.

The range is based on the APs of the sonic boom effect.. I think either 1/2 the APs or a range equal to the APs of the boom. So a 5 AP boom is either 3 APs or 5 Aps, or 80 feet or 320 feet. In theory someone with superspeed that was fluffed as some form of temporal displacement could natively bypass that kind of disruption, and that's how I've always figured superspeed that doesn't effect anything when the user passes by works. Personally I like the option to throw out a great big sonic boom attack if its nessicary. I'd rather live and lose the HP reward for the game then die.. or have to spend more HP anyways just to stay alive.