Chat about the game...

Ok Dave, Dunecat or Paul, quick few questions:

1. Where it says

7 Force Field 30/6 (100) - Attack through +1FC x2BC, Self Only -2

What is the -2 at the end - is that cost, or something related to the power and also what is +1FC and x2 BC?

2. And again with Power reserve you've added on,

"13 Power Reserve 150/10 (379) - Fatiguing -2, Connected to Str, Empathy, Mental Blast, Mind Blast, Mind Probe, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Postcognition, Superspeed +30 BC

Is the -2 Fatiguing a minus to the overall cost because it causes fatigue and how does that work out in game terms. Paul had before the idea if I rolled under 5 it burned out...is this the same thing. Can someone explain it to me, please? and again what is the +30 BC related to in terms of the power or is that again just build cost?

Thanks, just want to make sure that I have everything I need in one place and want to make sure I understand these terms before I move on.

Sj

Actually, the points you made helped me fiddle with it a little and I came up with this. Also, to answer your question, the -2 is applied to the Factor Cost. It's a drawback that makes gives the power a weakness while reducing it's cost. The +30 BC is an adjustment to the base cost, each thing effected by Power Reserve adds 5 points to the cost after the first two. The way Fatiguing works is explained below.

----

Dex 8 (70) Str^ 8 (60) Body 9 (72)
Int 8 (70) Will 5 (24) Mind 9 (72)
Inf 8 (70) Aura 5 (24) Spirit 9 (72)

(534)

Powers:
APs – Name –BC/FC – Final cost
- Notes and FC adjustments

Sensing Powers:

8 - Analytical Smell - 10/4 - (50)

8 Directional Hearing 5/3 (35)

7 Super Hearing 5/1 (13)

8 Telescopic Vision 5/1 (15)

8 Danger Sense 25/3 (55)

(168)


Mental Powers:

8 Empathy^ 20/4 (50)
- Max of 12 APs -1

7 Mind Blast^ 20/3 (44)

10 Mind Field 20/6 (84)
- Self only -2

5 Mind Probe^ 20/3 (32)

7 Telekinesis^ 15/6 (55)
- Flight Speed capped at 14 APs-1

8 Telepathy^ 20/4 (50)
- Max of 15 APs -1

4 Postcognition^ 15/2 (21)

(326)

Physical Powers:

7 Regeneration 25/8 (89)

8 Superspeed^ 25/8 (115)
- Max of 14APs -1, Adds to Dex +2

6 Sealed Systems 5/5 (35)

7 Force Field 30/6 (100)
- Attack through +1FC x2BC, Self Only -2

(329)

8 Power Reserve 150/10 (260)
- Fatiguing -2, Connected to Str, Empathy, Mental Blast, Mind Blast, Mind Probe, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Postcognition, Superspeed +30 BC

Skills

8 Accrobatics 15/7 (95)
- Reflexive Dodge +1*

8 Thief 10/9 (100)

8 Detective 10/8 (90)

8 Medicine 5/7 (75)

8 Martial Artist 25/7 (85)
- Special Linked -1

8 Vehicles 5/5 (55)


^ Powers marked with this may receive points from Power Reserve

*Reflexive dodge allows for a partial dodge maneuver to be performed if the character has already performed an action for the round. They gain half the normal advantage for a dodge with Acrobatics (1/2 acrobatics added to OV) and give up their next dice action. Additionally it takes two auto actions to move in the round where a dice action is lost to this maneuver.


----


The main difference is that I capped some of the powers via drawbacks on the power itself, trimmed down Power Reserve, Linked Martial Arts to Dex (it now scales to match your dex), and gave Superspeed an advantage to ADD to your dex rather then REPLACE it.

This means that while your maximum speed is 14 APs (something like mach 16), you can fight on 22 APs.

A quick break doen of what Martial Arts does for you is probably important at this point. You may use it for one of either AV(hitting), EV(damage), OV(dodging), RV(resisting damage that hits). It only does one of these things, and only in hand to hand combat. Additionally using it for damage counts as killing combat, which causes you to give up your hero point award for the entier adventure or half of it if you use killing combat in response to being attacked by someone using killing combat.

Your Power Reserve has a drawback on it called Fatiguing. What that does is causes you to take an attack from your Power Reserve power each round you use it, equal to the APs of Power Reserve used. Given your higher body it's fairly likely you'll not take damage each round, but to much will prove dangerous so it's best used in short spurts. You will however be able to make a recovery check every 8 rounds in combat.

I think that covers all the important changes. You mentioned making a tornado, that's either a power trick which takes up HP to use each time, or you would need to get the air control power with a drawback of only using it with superspeed.

8 Superspeed^ 25/8 (115)
- Max of 14APs -1, Adds to Dex +2


Now that is a cool idea. If I understand it, he has basically a normal 16 defense versus physical attacks, counting his 8 Dex and 8 superspeed added together; and if he uses his power reserve, it can raise as high as 22 defense. Then adding in reflexive Dodge makes a column or two higher for defense for when he positively wants to dodge all attacks heading his way.. Right?

I'd forgotten about the Reflexive dodge bit, but yes. He'd get another 4 APs of OV using that, and end up probably in the next highest grouping, they do go up to being 5AP groups eventually though, so it might not be worth much. And Paul might kibosh that particular rule anyway. The +2 on superspeed is something he oked for an older build of Stormbreaker though so it should be ok.

This way he always has the ability to fight on 16 Dex. In fact with his points all in Str he can fight at 16 Dex, 16 Str and 16RV for physical combat. Or he can just mind blast everybody and be done with it.. mental defences are typically less then physical ones after all.

dunecat wrote:I'd forgotten about the Reflexive dodge bit, but yes. He'd get another 4 APs of OV using that, and end up probably in the next highest grouping, they do go up to being 5AP groups eventually though, so it might not be worth much. And Paul might kibosh that particular rule anyway. The +2 on superspeed is something he oked for an older build of Stormbreaker though so it should be ok.

This way he always has the ability to fight on 16 Dex. In fact with his points all in Str he can fight at 16 Dex, 16 Str and 16RV for physical combat. Or he can just mind blast everybody and be done with it.. mental defences are typically less then physical ones after all.

All sounds good, I'll wait for Paul's final say so, and at least I can start to work out then what all this means ;-)

Sj

I'm hoping that he comes out feeling about right for you, as well as closer to the power level that Paul wants. Overall however he's not THAT much more powerful then the rest of us. We could potentially all rush some of our key powers up to his level. Personally I'd rather explore some other options, though ramping my Dex up is appealing

dunecat wrote:I'm hoping that he comes out feeling about right for you, as well as closer to the power level that Paul wants. Overall however he's not THAT much more powerful then the rest of us. We could potentially all rush some of our key powers up to his level. Personally I'd rather explore some other options, though ramping my Dex up is appealing

That is true, but if we start with this as his base, and then Paul can suggest augmenting the power reserve from 8 back to 13 or higher if he wants a simple way to push the envelop and make him better. I like what we've got this serves as a good starting point, in any case. So thanks once again.

Sj

No problem. Some of his powers do have hard caps imposed that would make simply improving his power reserve not quite as effective at making him more powerful. He would be able to apply it to more things all at once however. Another way to really push his combat ability would be connecting his Power Reserve to his Dex as well as Superspeed, He could then apply his full Power Reserve value to his AV and OV. He'd be able to fight with the same reflexes as the Flash, even if he couldn't ever outrun him.

Looks like I have some catching up to do - will update what I can tonight (back, and had the kids dumped on me so every 5 mins dragged from computer...) and take a good look at the rejigged Lioheart.

Also seen updated Stormbreaker Ryan, so will take a look (but first glance suggests just skin armour and power reserve made clearer)

Arggh. Have to go the 3 year old is shooting a water pistol (some giant nerf thing) in the house... back to reality

That's right, I'm pretty much happy with the way Stormbreaker is now, but you pointed out that you disliked the drawback on Skin Armor twice so I thought I should try some alternatives. You also keep reading the old version of Power Reserve as giving him 13 Dex when he's supposed to have 14 Dex. Other then that it's all the same.

You can also probably just read the last little bit of the discussion on Lionhearts sheet if you wanted to. It should be fairly clear I would think..

Just a heads up. I plan to look through and see what I can update in the next twenty minutes or so but the house is being ripped apart this weekend to put in new boiler/radiators/pipes and it looks like a bomb has hit it. I never realized how many RPGs I have stashed about the place, even though I haven't played face to face for decades. Took two days to clear my computer room (on and off, in between the dog escaping from the kid by getting in my way every 2 minutes) and the loft is jam packed, as is one of the other rooms in the house with my 'junk' as the wife so bluntly puts it...

Anyway, I expect to be able to update this weekend (and hope to start lore knights next chapter guys, sorry about the wait) but can't state when. I expect by Sunday night I'll have torn my hair out. These things always seem like a good idea in the planning stages, but pulling up carpets and floorboards, running pipes under walls and behind partitions and generally trashing the place doesn't seem like a good idea at the minute. I'm sure in a few months I'll look back and wonder what the fuss is about...

Also anyone seen Man of Steel yet? Any good? Seen mixed reviews, but meh, what do they know? Plan to see it next week hopefully but that depends on stress levels...

Admin wrote:Just a heads up. I plan to look through and see what I can update in the next twenty minutes or so but the house is being ripped apart this weekend to put in new boiler/radiators/pipes and it looks like a bomb has hit it. I never realized how many RPGs I have stashed about the place, even though I haven't played face to face for decades. Took two days to clear my computer room (on and off, in between the dog escaping from the kid by getting in my way every 2 minutes) and the loft is jam packed, as is one of the other rooms in the house with my 'junk' as the wife so bluntly puts it...

Anyway, I expect to be able to update this weekend (and hope to start lore knights next chapter guys, sorry about the wait) but can't state when. I expect by Sunday night I'll have torn my hair out. These things always seem like a good idea in the planning stages, but pulling up carpets and floorboards, running pipes under walls and behind partitions and generally trashing the place doesn't seem like a good idea at the minute. I'm sure in a few months I'll look back and wonder what the fuss is about...

Also anyone seen Man of Steel yet? Any good? Seen mixed reviews, but meh, what do they know? Plan to see it next week hopefully but that depends on stress levels...

Hope it goes well Paul, completely understand.  

Saw Man of Steel this afternoon, excellent movie, very moving in parts.  Massive levels of destruction, its like they went Crisis on infinite earths, Krytonian's know no mercy.  Anyway I loved it, definitely worth a second look.  More Dark Knight that Avengers in tone, serious but with lots of emotional beats.  I can't recommend it highly enough, but it depends what you're looking for.  It did remind me of some of our previous campaigns, though ;-).

Sj

It's definitely on my list to see then

No update tonight (sorry) - need to hit sack. What a bonkers day. The house was a mess to start with but things seemed to be going ok (albeit with kids driving us mad, dog going bananas with all the drills and what not). Then the plumber sliced through a few (4) wires upstairs. Couldn't tell what they were for, nothing conked out, no problem. Ah... not quite. Alarm was deprived of power and couldn't trace which wire fed the alarm, got a sparky in, same result with him unable to figure out which wire fed which. He 'belled' the alarm and couldn't find the right cable to feed it and came up with all sorts of theories that it was fed from another circuit breaker than the one I told him, then disconnected all wires from the particular circuit breaker  Anyway, I insisted he put them back. Glad I did. 

So, with an alarm running on battery (you know what's coming) the wife goes out to get fish and chips for tea. Comes back in the house about a minute later - a coil spring snapped on her car backing out of the drive...  Another job to do then. Last time got a local mechanic to do it and he drove the car back to his place - extra cost being one tyre as the coil spring gouged a huge chunk out of the sidewall on the way. This time I'll do it (and probably get wet through cause the weather is lousy and I can't move the car without risking the tyre).

So wife gets kids in bed... and the alarm starts going off whilst I'm at a friends (30 mile away) borrowing spring compressors for the above mentioned job. Much cursing and driving like a lunatic to get home, and wife has silenced the alarm internally - but now the external one is going bonkers. Had no choice but to take up floorboards and guess which wires connected to the alarm and wire them up together. Flick the circuit breaker, cross fingers and ... KABOOM!

No, not quite, but I wouldn't have been surprised after today. Alarm feed restored, then had to track down the disconnected sensors (wires sliced) and crimp them back together. It's been ... a learning curve. Anyway, alarm is sorted out (all lights showing normal, kind of dreading setting it for the night but it should be fine), coil spring to fix and have another day of madness to endure before the plumbers get done. The new boiler runs off the same circuit for the alarm, so that'll be fun and games. 

Off to bed, more adventures tomorrow doubtless, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel now. It's just costing me a lot of money every step of the way though  All part of the 'fun' in living in a 100+ year old house 

OMG!!!!   And you found time to tell us that!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I'm impressed.  Your house sounds like a money pit.  They made a couple of movies about such houses before.  Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House & The Money Pit.  Someday, you should rent them and either burn your house down or give yourself a medal.

Oh boy Paul when you do things its like a Carry on, with Steroids.  I hope today sees you through this one, and that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't another train bearing down on you.  

Sj

Yeah, Frank Spencer has nothing on me ...

The removal of the suspension was a complete *&*&^*()(* as the workshop manual never mentions that the car might be crudded/rusted up underneath. And the 'fitting is the reversal of removal' nonsense makes me laugh when you have a mountain of bits to put back on.

Anyway, boiler+radiators sorted, had to sort out the carpets and some floorboards, but by now I just shrug and get on with it. Nice little remote control heating system, though I don't have a clue what all the buttons mean. Probably mean bigger heating bills... *shrug*

Car still to finish tomorrow, but have time for some updates, and will take a good look at the Lore Knights now.

Update tonight in case anyone was wondering. Work have been trying to kill me, but I managed to survive. Saying that, there's tomorrows 0800 shift to grind through as well, so I'd best keep my mouth shut. More later on.

I'm still alive by the way. I've just been working out of town lately and the fiance has been keeping the laptop at home. I'll attempt to get a post up tomorrow sometime if I can, if not then I'll try and whip one up on the phone after work one of the week days.

No worries - will continue at your pace. Only just (today) got my computer room back up and running. All been boxed up the last 2 weeks and my laptop is usually hijacked by the kids when I'm at home  Just about getting back to normal...

I'm just sitting down to write up a post now and was looking over my options.. turns out Stormbreaker (and by extension Lionheart with his superior speed) can circumnavigate the earth in a single round.  The globe is about 24,500 miles around and the upper limit for 14 aps of distance is 28,000 (and change). Aps of a movement power = APs of distance traveled in a single turn. I had no idea I'd have the ability to do that when I made him though.

So, seeing as it was brought up a little while ago I've been taking a look at Silver Sentinel's character sheet. He's pretty potent as is actually. I think the biggest issue that's come up is that there has been some confusion about what he can accomplish. For instance, his Metal Manipulation is a lot like Force manipulation - he can set attributes and physical powers for what he makes. In other words he could make a perminant suit of armour out of steel (body 12) and then use his APs of Metal manipulation to give it specific abilities, limited by whats available of course. For this example lets say he wants a basic defensive suit.. he could just slap 11 Skin Armour on it. He'd end up with this.

Sentinel Armour
Body 12
Skin Armour 11

The body couldn't stand in for his (though he could likely pay a FC adjustment to allow that), but he would get +11 to his OV.

This almost makes Fabricate pointless, except that Fabricate can create much more involved items with much less APs of power.. it's kind of like a turbo charge button. He can use it to rattle out a highly involved piece of tech without the limit of how many APs he can make. It just won't last long. For his basic Staples though, like a simple defensive suit and blaster gauntlets he could do that using Metal Manipulation.

For a suggestion

Sentinel Armour (Body 12, Skin Armour 11)
Blaster Gauntlets (Body 12, Force Blast 11)
Flight Boots (Body 12, Flight 11)

That would leave him with all those abilities whenever he needed them, without having to worry about them fading. Additionally he can replicate ANY physical power using this, Flash, Darkness, Fog, Growth, Multi Arm, Split, Flight, Digging, Swimming, Force Blast, Force Field, Mimic, vampirism.. its a very very long list.

In addition to that his Attraction/Repulsion is completely redundant considering he has Magnetic control, both of which let him move metal towards and away from him. I'll get a full writeup and point cost worked up over the weekend and see if we can't wring a little more oomph out of him, perhaps Area of Effect on his Magnetic Control and/or Metal Manipulation?

dunecat wrote:I'm just sitting down to write up a post now and was looking over my options.. turns out Stormbreaker (and by extension Lionheart with his superior speed) can circumnavigate the earth in a single round.  The globe is about 24,500 miles around and the upper limit for 14 aps of distance is 28,000 (and change). Aps of a movement power = APs of distance traveled in a single turn. I had no idea I'd have the ability to do that when I made him though.

Will have to check, but 14APs is 16 miles (probably a bit more thanks to upper limit) and 20APs is 1000 miles (or nearer 1800 miles I think). You'd need to have around 25APs speed I think to whizz round the globe in one round (4 seconds). I think. Haven't got the charts anywhere near to hand, but pretty sure.

I think.

dunecat wrote:So, seeing as it was brought up a little while ago I've been taking a look at Silver Sentinel's character sheet. He's pretty potent as is actually. I think the biggest issue that's come up is that there has been some confusion about what he can accomplish. For instance, his Metal Manipulation is a lot like Force manipulation - he can set attributes and physical powers for what he makes. In other words he could make a perminant suit of armour out of steel (body 12) and then use his APs of Metal manipulation to give it specific abilities, limited by whats available of course. For this example lets say he wants a basic defensive suit.. he could just slap 11 Skin Armour on it. He'd end up with this.

Sentinel Armour
Body 12
Skin Armour 11

The body couldn't stand in for his (though he could likely pay a FC adjustment to allow that), but he would get +11 to his OV.

This almost makes Fabricate pointless, except that Fabricate can create much more involved items with much less APs of power.. it's kind of like a turbo charge button. He can use it to rattle out a highly involved piece of tech without the limit of how many APs he can make. It just won't last long. For his basic Staples though, like a simple defensive suit and blaster gauntlets he could do that using Metal Manipulation.

For a suggestion

Sentinel Armour (Body 12, Skin Armour 11)
Blaster Gauntlets (Body 12, Force Blast 11)
Flight Boots (Body 12, Flight 11)

That would leave him with all those abilities whenever he needed them, without having to worry about them fading. Additionally he can replicate ANY physical power using this, Flash, Darkness, Fog, Growth, Multi Arm, Split, Flight, Digging, Swimming, Force Blast, Force Field, Mimic, vampirism.. its a very very long list.

In addition to that his Attraction/Repulsion is completely redundant considering he has Magnetic control, both of which let him move metal towards and away from him. I'll get a full writeup and point cost worked up over the weekend and see if we can't wring a little more oomph out of him, perhaps Area of Effect on his Magnetic Control and/or Metal Manipulation?

Ross (Sentinel) isn't up on the rules that much as far as I can tell so perhaps is limited by not knowing what the character can really do. I was thinking of adding an energy attack that affects metallic objects only - a concentrated force blast of magnetism or something like that (save not just ferrous metals). Worth -1FC and enough to buy a 15AP energy blast (Affects metal objects -1FC) and give some easy 'oomph' rather than having to build gauntlets. Or adds 'requires metal gauntlets to use APs as AV, otherwise must use Dex' -1FC. That means Sentinel needs some metal to whip up a set of gauntlets but once they are on him he can use them to blast away at metal with a very potent blast. For conventional energy blast (that affects everything) he just uses Matter Manipulation to whip up an energy blast device.

On another note, have to hit the sack soon (yeah, with the sun blazing down outside) so will get what I can done with updates either tonight or some ungodly hour in the morning.

Night shifts. Gotta hate them with a passion love em.

Just so you know, have another 12 hour killer to grind through tonight, then done for the weekend so expect more regular updates and (finally) first attempt at updated Silver Sentinel and Frostbite. If Haunt needs tweaking, let me know David, though I'd guess you could pretty much come up with the tweaks/changes yourself.

More 12 hour work garbage for me this week Just letting you know, so that whilst I will update where I can, I'm having to get 4 hours sleep in one block of time, get up, do stuff, get another hours sleep then go to work for 14 or so hours (getting there and back) before doing it all again. I know how Bill Murray felt in 'Groundhog day'.

On the bright side I have 2 weeks off from Saturday and I don't think we've got much planned so will be in UK and able to catch up.

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