Grey's Build Brainstorming

[BentonGrey]

Ahh, thanks Bashman, that's very helpful.

1) Gotcha', as the character in question is a ghost, Ghost Form seems like a good addition!

2) I just bought Awesome Powers, and that works great!

3) So, Illusion would be more defensive or narrative in use, not really something you could use offensively in combat? I suppose Mind Control makes the most sense for what I'm doing with this character.

I can't wait for the new B.A.S.H. kickstarter. I'm looking forward to getting in on the ground floor of that conversation!

[BASHMAN]

Glad to be of help!

3. Essentially, yes; but a lot of powers are useful even if not for combat specifically. That Illusion power can be used to disguise a group of people as security guards for instance to access a restricted area.

The way I'd do it, is give the characters a roll each round to realize that they are under an illusion effect, similar to the way they can break free from Daze or Confusion (a 20 Mind Check).

[BentonGrey]

Thanks Bashman!

Right, I don't mean to imply that the power isn't useful if it isn't combat specific, just that it wouldn't serve the purpose my villain needed.

I've got a new question for y'all, one not specifically tied to a single power. One of my players was darn near impossible to hit, with an agility of 3 and several abilities that gave him bonuses to his defense, like Deflect 3 and Danger Sense. Now he's leveled up and put all of his points into even MORE agility, bringing him up to 5, meaning that his defense for physical attacks is 10, and I already couldn't hit him with the villains I've been building.

Now, I'm having a hard time challenging him with characters that are also balanced for the rest of the team, most of whom are not nearly as agile. It seems that characters who can hit him are impossible for the rest of the team to hit, which is no fun for them, or have to use a area or mental powers, which isn't much fun for the first player because there isn't a lot he can do against those.

Do y'all have any suggestions for how to challenge a diverse mix of characters, especially with a super agile type among them?

[Baelor]

Mental Attacks are a great way to put some hurt on characters with really high Defense. With Mind blast you can give him some pain, or use his Defense against his pals with Mind Control. Confusion and Daze also work Mind vs, Mind.


You don't mention how he attacks, but if it is in Hand to hand, you can give a character damage aura. If he hits the character, he sucks up the attack automatically.

Finally, any Burst attack negates the Deflect bonus, which will make him easier to hit.

[BASHMAN]

Deflect 3 + Danger Sense + Agility 3 is only x8 Defense.

If he has things like Martial Arts Mastery, remember that can only increase a multiplier up to a maximum of x5; so Defensive Style martial arts will not stack. I'd let him choose something else.

Also, you cannot Deflect a Burst attack. Something to think about, as this would lower his defense to x5 against it.

Moreover, Confusion and Daze are both Mind-affecting attacks. Does he have an excellent Mental Defense? If not, Daze gives you a FREE HIT on him. Use it to knock him out of the park.

Feel free to build the villain with Daze with AFTER EFFECT: Confusion. So when the Daze wears off, after he wakes up downtown amid the rubble of the building you knocked him through, he still will have a -4 Dice Penalty to ALL his Agility rolls, including attack and defense.

So now he is working with a -4 Dice Penalty at x6 Multiplier to avoid your smart-bombs that you throw at him (Smart Bomb: Special Attack 5 [+2 Hit, +3DM, Close Range, Small Burst])

Does he have an EXCELLENT Brawn? No? Then get grappling.

Remember that grappling multiplier is the LOWER of your Brawn and Agility (use the difference between the two as a dice bonus).

So if he has Brawn 1 Agility 5, for grappling he rolls x1 with a +4 Dice Bonus. I'm sure your Brawn 4 Agility 4 villain with Martial Arts Mastery: Wrestling will fare pretty well against him.

There is also psychology.

Does he have a conscience? Good, use that as a weapon. Villains do this all the time to get the upper-hand on an unbeatable opponent. "Oh, you want to keep making me waste my attacks to shoot you and miss? Okay, instead I'll shoot some debris to land on that crowd of bystanders. Hope you've got the heroism to push them out of the way. " Make it apparent that HIS AND ONLY HIS CHARACTER is close enough to do it. If he has "Quick Thinking" he has to use it. If he doesn't, he has to burn a Hero Die. If he just watches them get hurt, send him some setback points; or make it a Villain Die. Next page, he ought to be Holding Off his turn, just so he can intervene to help people. You are now killing 2 birds with one stone here: he is not annoying you by being immune to your attacks, he is not annoying the other PCs by showing them all up (and wailing on the villain who cannot be his equal). Also he gets to be heroic by saving civilians. Toss him some hero points when this happens to him to drive it home.

You can also use hostage situation to force him to get into a dangerous situation "Come out here and face me, or I blow up the stadium!".

[BentonGrey]

Right, he leveled up and increased his Agility to 5, so that's where the 10 bonus comes from.

Ohh man, those are some excellent suggestions! Thanks so much, I love the idea of Daze+Confusion. That's excellent, and I had forgotten that Deflect doesn't count against Burst attacks!

Apparently I've been doing grappling wrong! My copy of the rules says that to initiate a grapple each person picks Brawn or Agility. I now see that this is in the errata. This is going to change things quite a bit!

:EDIT: Okay, new questions:

1) Can Teleport be used to escape from Grapple? It sort of seems to me that it should be able to do that provided it doesn't have limitations like Concentration.

2) How long does Weaken last?

[BASHMAN]

Right, he leveled up and increased his Agility to 5, so that's where the 10 bonus comes from.

You are perfectly free to limit his ability to increase Stats. A stat increase should be extremely rare; the sort of thing that is ever allowed to happen only once in an entire campaign to one stat. Twice to the same stat in one game session? No way. How much XP did he have to spend anyway? Stats are SUPER EXPENSIVE to raise with XP.

1. Teleport can be used to get out of a grapple, as can Ghost Form.

2. Weaken lasts for a scene, until something happens to end the effect (so if it is poison, you can cure it with treatment, etc). The restoration power will also end its effects. As a Limitation, you could take "Short Duration: 3 Pages" as a reasonable limit.

[BentonGrey]

I'm using a different approach to leveling up. At the end of each story arc (which are roughly a year long at our bi-weekly pace) I'm awarding 5 points for them to spend like character creation points. Now, I will probably offer limits on what they can change in their stats, but the real crux of this fellow's character is his agility, so I thought this was a * change.

A) Thanks! I was wondering about that, and it's sure to come up eventually.

B) Ahh, I suspected as much. Excellent, I'll do just that.

Thanks as always for the responses, Chris. My players were very impressed when I mentioned that it was the system's creator that had set me straight about grapple rules! Ha, I've encouraged them all to check these forums out.

I have some new questions, though.

1) I've got a player whose character is a guy in power armor. He's got a force field, but he also has armor. He told me today that he's feeling like this isn't a terribly efficient set up, as he's really rarely using his armor because his force field protects him pretty well. I told him he could try to think about a more efficient way of using those points if he wanted, and suggested that he might be able to find some way of combing the power as a multi-power. At the moment he's got Force Field 3 and Armor 2. Does anyone have any suggestions about a more streamlined, point-wise, way to handle his defenses?

2) The villain my players are squaring off with next has a damage aura. Obviously that does damage any time anyone touches him, but does it/should it have any kind of impact on a grab attempt? When is the damage applied?

3) Here's the complicated one. So, one of my players had a really fantastic concept for his character. This fellow doesn't have a very creative job, so he's really poured his creativity into this game and impressed everyone with what he's come up with during our meetings. Anyway, his concept was that of an African shaman who tricked a demon into granting him power, but found himself in trouble after the deal when the beast sought revenge upon his village. In order to keep the demon from killing his people, the shaman bound the beast to his soul. So, the end result is a magical version of the Hulk, in some ways. The character himself has magical powers, summoning, and healing. However, that demon is always there, just waiting for a chance to get out and wreak havoc.

In game terms, my friend took a special custom Weakness we whipped up that we called "Involuntary Form." It is like Involuntary Change, except instead of changing into his super form against his will, he changes into an entirely different character, who acts like a berserker. When the character gets down to 30 HP, the demon comes out unless he makes a very difficult mind roll every round until he is healed. Once it comes out, it has its own build, based on the same number of points (30). Whereas the hero is a magical summoner and ranged combatant, the demon is a melee beast who is very tough, and who wants nothing more than to hurt the hero in any way possible, especially by undoing his good works and hurting his friends.

So, the question I have is two-fold. First, what would you say such a weakness would be worth? I gave him 4 character points for it, but I wonder about it. (At this point, I'm not going to take them away and tell him he has to redesign his entire character, but I'm just curious.) Second, we're discussing the mechanism for the hero to change back. I was thinking about contested mind rolls, and having his deeds, selfish or selfless add dice penalties or bonuses to the roll. What do y'all think?

[BentonGrey]

I've got another question, folks. My players are building a headquarters, and they have a super computer for which they are buying powers. I was wondering how you'd stat-out the ability to use some of these powers, like super senses or omni-linguist, via a communicator or the like. Basically, would you buy range for each of these powers, or what?

[BASHMAN]

I think that his transforming into a monster at below 30 Hits would be okay as a -2 point weakness, actually.

Communicators are really just equipment; you don't need special range or anything for them.

The super computer can have OmniLinguist, but this is meant to be used while you are in the HQ, as are all the HQ powers. If you are okay with them taking it, and using their earbuds to do it, that's fine, but don't feel like you have to if you don't want them to do that.

Likewise, the Super Senses that the HQ has would be for its own security or scientific equipment used on site. It doesn't give every member free X-Ray vision glasses or something.

In Awesome Powers #4, I am including a new, in-depth Membership advantage for people to build super teams. It allows the team to take things like equipment or HQs, etc. together as a group rather than have multiple different advantages.

This way if you want to have a "Legion of Super Heroes" type of group where everybody gets flight rings and force field belts, you can do that (with Narrator approval), but you can also have everyone get communicators as a lower level ability of the group.

[MrJupiter]

I really like the sound of this Membership advantage. This way a player can have his own personal Headquarters as well as membership and access to the team's Headquarters.

It sounds like the Omni-Linguist power would be a great perk for those team-mates with that Membership advantage. This is great!

[Supertodd]

The big bad villainess in my current adventure is a sorceress who uses her magic to turn normal people into the super-powered enemies of the PCs. What power would cover this? The cosmic power Life 10 would let her do this up to a point; she'd be able to add/subtract 1 to their Stats and add 2 pts of Powers. That's a whopping 20 pts already but I'd need to give her many more levels in order for her to create a 25+ pt or so character to be a good rival for a PC. Is there a more cost-efficient way to do this? I still want her to have some other dastardly powers as well for when the PCs finally confront her. Thanks in advance!

[Solarblast]

Deflect 3 + Danger Sense + Agility 3 is only x8 Defense.

If he has things like Martial Arts Mastery, remember that can only increase a multiplier up to a maximum of x5; so Defensive Style martial arts will not stack. I'd let him choose something else.

Also, you cannot Deflect a Burst attack. Something to think about, as this would lower his defense to x5 against it.

Moreover, Confusion and Daze are both Mind-affecting attacks. Does he have an excellent Mental Defense? If not, Daze gives you a FREE HIT on him. Use it to knock him out of the park.

Feel free to build the villain with Daze with AFTER EFFECT: Confusion. So when the Daze wears off, after he wakes up downtown amid the rubble of the building you knocked him through, he still will have a -4 Dice Penalty to ALL his Agility rolls, including attack and defense.

So now he is working with a -4 Dice Penalty at x6 Multiplier to avoid your smart-bombs that you throw at him (Smart Bomb: Special Attack 5 [+2 Hit, +3DM, Close Range, Small Burst])

Does he have an EXCELLENT Brawn? No? Then get grappling.

Remember that grappling multiplier is the LOWER of your Brawn and Agility (use the difference between the two as a dice bonus).

So if he has Brawn 1 Agility 5, for grappling he rolls x1 with a +4 Dice Bonus. I'm sure your Brawn 4 Agility 4 villain with Martial Arts Mastery: Wrestling will fare pretty well against him.

There is also psychology.

Does he have a conscience? Good, use that as a weapon. Villains do this all the time to get the upper-hand on an unbeatable opponent. "Oh, you want to keep making me waste my attacks to shoot you and miss? Okay, instead I'll shoot some debris to land on that crowd of bystanders. Hope you've got the heroism to push them out of the way. " Make it apparent that HIS AND ONLY HIS CHARACTER is close enough to do it. If he has "Quick Thinking" he has to use it. If he doesn't, he has to burn a Hero Die. If he just watches them get hurt, send him some setback points; or make it a Villain Die. Next page, he ought to be Holding Off his turn, just so he can intervene to help people. You are now killing 2 birds with one stone here: he is not annoying you by being immune to your attacks, he is not annoying the other PCs by showing them all up (and wailing on the villain who cannot be his equal). Also he gets to be heroic by saving civilians. Toss him some hero points when this happens to him to drive it home.

You can also use hostage situation to force him to get into a dangerous situation "Come out here and face me, or I blow up the stadium!".

If he has things like Martial Arts Mastery, remember that can only increase a multiplier up to a maximum of x5; so Defensive Style martial arts will not stack. I'd let him choose something else

Where does the rule book actually say this?

[Solarblast]

The big bad villainess in my current adventure is a sorceress who uses her magic to turn normal people into the super-powered enemies of the PCs. What power would cover this? The cosmic power Life 10 would let her do this up to a point; she'd be able to add/subtract 1 to their Stats and add 2 pts of Powers. That's a whopping 20 pts already but I'd need to give her many more levels in order for her to create a 25+ pt or so character to be a good rival for a PC. Is there a more cost-efficient way to do this? I still want her to have some other dastardly powers as well for when the PCs finally confront her. Thanks in advance!

I would just make it a plot device.

[MrJupiter]

The big bad villainess in my current adventure is a sorceress who uses her magic to turn normal people into the super-powered enemies of the PCs. What power would cover this? The cosmic power Life 10 would let her do this up to a point; she'd be able to add/subtract 1 to their Stats and add 2 pts of Powers. That's a whopping 20 pts already but I'd need to give her many more levels in order for her to create a 25+ pt or so character to be a good rival for a PC. Is there a more cost-efficient way to do this? I still want her to have some other dastardly powers as well for when the PCs finally confront her. Thanks in advance!

As Solarblast mentioned this could be handled as a plot device (particularly if these newly created adversaries are intended to become permanent super villains). If your intention is to always have the villainess be able to transform bystanders into loyal, super-powered lackeys, then you should consider Summoning from the Master Powers.

With Summoning 5, and the Situational (Requires Bystanders) limitation applied, she could pull out this special trick any time she needed to. It would be extra useful for her if she had the 2-point enhancement that would allow her to custom-build each transformed bystander separately.