Sergio; "The Shriek"

[Papa Bear]

Limitations in a multi power slot only applies to the cost of the slot. Limitations don't apply to reduce active points, only real cost. The 6d6 (and the rest of them) use 30 points plus the AP cost, but which is 38 after rounding. So your multi pool needs at least 38 points in it. But the "only one attack" thing is something I do all the time. I mean, you can only make one attack a round anyway, might as well make them come from the same pool of points

[GleefulNihilism]

Okay, so the Beam limitation on that Blast isn’t doing anything, just making the buying a slot cheaper? Seems odd but I won’t argue.

Probably should figure out if I need to make any other tweaks before I work on it. Worried my OCV / DCV might be too low.

[Papa Bear]

OK, Sorry, but Beam doesn't actually affect the reserve. A reserve of points can't be affected by doing maximum dice of damage. In other words, the Beam Limitation wouldn't actually limit the reserve of points in any way and that's kind of a must in Champions. If you save points on a limitation that doesn't actually limit you, its not really a limitation. So, the MP must have a cost (at this point) of 38 points to fit the powers in the slots (You could do 5d6 blast that would decrease the cost to 31 CP at this power level, 5d6 AP is fair, not good. Against max defenses you'd do about 7 points of damage average. You'd likely KO someone that didn't increase their STUN with three hits)

The HKA... actually, I'm not sure what the points are for this... You get to add your STR to the HKA, and with your 30 points you put in it I think your HKA is supposed to be 2 1/2d6 (according to the Hero Designer Program), so, slightly better. Depending on how you roll on the stun multiplier, it could be pretty good damage and dangerous against those without resistant defenses. You'll likely kill someone without resistant defenses in two hits if they didn't add a nice chunk of BODY. At any rate, the cost is the same here. The Reserve still costs 38 points and each power slot (fixed) costs 4 each (or 3 each with Beam)

You've miscalculated the cost of the slots. Each slot costs the Active Points (in this case, 37.5) divided by 10 because they are fixed slots. 4 each or with the Beam limitation (-1/4), 3 each.

With your Forcefield, yeah, your DCV is a little low. However, this might be offset by your play style. You're doing the Batman thing by knocking out lights and stealth. People have to see you to hit you (unless they have a targeting sense like Spatial Awareness). Still, a couple more points in DCV couldn't hurt.

[GleefulNihilism]

I figure it would be better to figure out all the changes I need to do first so I can hopefully do them all at once.

So sounds like you’re suggesting I free up at least 8 points to get my Blast/HKA thing to work plus ideally another 5 to find a way to bring up my DCV a bit.

[Papa Bear]

Those increases will help, yes. I can't say from where all the points might come. But you do have 40 stun (which is a nice amount), so a couple points off of each PD and ED can get you an increased DCV, which is probably a better expenditure of points. As well, a +7 to Perception gives you a 19- roll, which is insanely high. 16- is almost always a success and even with a few penalties, still gives you a good chance of success. Now, I get that noticing things might be part of your schtick, but its a place you can get points with very little impact against you.

Also, since your character has his Active Sonar and several other enhancements to hearing, a full complication from blindness is not appropriate since the toon can fully function in most ways. Champions complete doesn't go into this aspect of complications but "A complication that isn't a complication isn't worth any points." and a few examples are given where powers compensate for the complication. This has been a factor in all editions of champions. Now, there are some minor complications, like not being able to see color or read a newspaper or sign with your Radar, so you can keep the complication, but it can't be worth all 35 points, maybe more like 25.

[Papa Bear]

So, rereading the backstory, do you already have an idea for what happened in those missing 3 days before Sergio began developing his powers? If no, let's figure it out... mostly I say this because there IS an evil creep in SC, well hidden, who kidnaps homeless people or others who might not be missed and does experiments on them. This evil creep usually ends up killing the poor kidnappees with the experiments but some survive and are 'thrown back' if the experiments didn't seem to work... considering your toon developed those powers after the missing days, but not straight away, he might have been a 'catch and release' victim.

Anyway, you don't have to go this route. it just kind of fit something already going on in Sovereign City so I thought I'd toss it out there.

[GleefulNihilism]

Okay, so ideally find a way to free up 23 points. 8 for the Blast/HKA boost, 5 for giving a bit to DCV, and 10 for adjusting the Blind complication since his powers counter some of that. Thanks for the suggestions on where to start, this might take a bit. :P

And honestly, my plan for the missing 3 days I was intentionally leaving blank for a bit so it could be used to tie in to something setting specific and ideally with another player for a connection. Was leaning Pegasus Pharmaceuticals before you wrote that, but that - that is interesting. Occurs to me that even the deviation from the "people who won't be missed" is kind of explainable as him disappearing for a few days could be explained as a bender. His music has a blues/rock vibe for the most part, the hardest part to believe would be him finding the drugs to kick things off. :P

[GleefulNihilism]

Actually think I managed it. Added a few more complications to counter that his powers partially mitigate the blindness and got rid of the Active Sonar and toned down the perception bonus a bit, that pretty much paid for everything.

[Papa Bear]

You got rid of Active Sonar? That's massive. You could go higher on the blindness complication without the Active Sonar. I'm for the active sonar...

Remember, the 60 points of matching complications doesn't reduce the points you have to spend on your character, you just have to have 60 points in complications... ten extra points of complications shouldn't be bad. You only need to skim some points for more DCV and the fit that Multipower. You do NOT need to get rid of the Active Sonar. to make attacks against a specific target, you need to have a 'targeting sense' and without sight, you lose that (so the complication would be 'fully' even with enhanced perception, all 35 points)

I see that you've got Spatial Awareness, which is a lot more expensive than Active Sonar. Was spatial awareness in there before and I missed it? Yes, Spatial Awareness is better (you can't get deafened by some effect and suddenly don't know where things are around you and others can't 'sense' that the spatial awareness is being used). Sonar fits more appropriately for your toon, I think. That right there would save you 17 points (though you have spatial awareness at 30 points but its actually 32 points). So it should be 46 active points / 1.5 = 31 real cost if you went with the sonar instead

 

[GleefulNihilism]

Yes, Spatial Awareness was there before. And the book actually mentions that if a sensory power is tied to an established sense that arguably provides a weaker version of it anyway you can take some points off and the example they give is that if you justify your character having spatial awareness because their hearing is just that good then it’s 30 points not 32.

Are spatial awareness and active sonar otherwise redundant? Admittedly, that’s a big part of the reason why I justified to myself getting rid of active sonar. Because I argue myself into believing that the two powers were largely redundant other than the fact that spatial awareness was harder to “flash” mechanically.
 

Definitely feels like we should figure that out. Good thing we are still in the rough draft phase.

Edited April 14 by GleefulNihilism (see edit history)

[Papa Bear]

Hmm... I don't know where that point reduction (32 to 30) comes from, but Functionally they are almost the same; both grant you knowledge of the surrounding area but sonar can be fooled by objects that absorb vibration (vibranium? But that's a Marvel thing... surely something like that won't exist in the game realm). They both fall in the 'unusual sense group' (Active sonar used to be hearing group, i think) so they flash just as easily (though, one advantage is you can't buy the Unusual senses as a group, you have to buy each thing in it individually). Spatial awareness does allow you to make perception checks through objects, like walls (penatrative), to sense what's on the other side. Sonar does not. But like N-ray vision, there's a substance that you can't sense through. I'd probably go with the sonar since its a significant drop in cost and it makes more sense with your power set. I don't like the ability to figure out where a chair is in a room closed off when the special effect is hearing, even super hearing. If it was some kind of 'cosmic awareness' or something, sure.

So yeah, like I said, I'd probably go with Sonar, personally. It makes more sense in my mind and it easily saves a lot of points for you so you don't have to shave off as much from other places. We can go with that 32 to 30. I think over all that it saves you 1 point IF you go with the spatial awareness, though I think that rule is more for if you have two similar special senses like Radar and Sonar... but without being able to find it, I can't know for sure.

[GleefulNihilism]

Yeah, I didn't catch all those differences when I went through the book. Put them right next to each other and yeah, Sonar makes more sense. Only issue there is that I can picture it penetrating *some* materials, but "ultrasonic perception" and "analyze hearing group" probably covers that.

 

I'll make the switch, figure out what to do with the points it frees. :P

[Papa Bear]

If you have some points, you can add partial penetrative but that is 10 points I think so you'd only save a few points over spatial awareness

[GleefulNihilism]

Would it be that big of a difference, adding partial penetrative when I already have “ultrasonic perception” and “analyse hearing group”? I do like the idea that he can hear heartbeats, so I’ll make tweaks if you feel better but otherwise I think I’m done. Feel free to take another look.

[Papa Bear]

Ultrasonic is a frequency that we humans do not normally hear. Penetrative refers to the ability to pierce through ... So stuff that normally block sound can still be heard or armor that blocks damage still gets some damage through.