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Shard O'Glase said:
I just wanted to point out that in the FH spells put forth in the FH books AP, don't look like a huge consideration. Many spells go past what I'd cosnider a heroic AP limit, and yet are still relatively unexpensive to purchase. They seem to use these wierd things called limitations to drop the real cost a bit.
As stated before, even if you drop the Ap limits you still have things like total points to worry about.
Shard O'Glase said:
So transform 6d6 major person to carp, 90 active points gestures, incantations, requires a skill roll, OAF disk of transmuting, Requires 40 real points in college of transmutation. And it costs something like 22 points.
Thats cool but irrelevent when looking at cost IN COMPARISON.
The 90 Ap power for 22 pts is cool.
However the same lims apply just as well to the 6d6 of wait 7d6 Eb at 35 points and drops the costs there to... 8 pts?
The system still favors the EB.
and as you know, but neglect to add surprisingly, the higher AP total even if the cap is lifted still impacts the power greatly,
With the LIMITATIONS YOU CHOSE, the skill roll for this power will be 6 harder than the skill roll for the 7d6 EB, meaning to have the same chance of success at casting the spell at all i will need to have something like 6 points spent to boost the skill roll for this one spell.
The end cost will be triple that of the EB.
The attempts to paint the image of transform as a reasonable attack in HERo when compared to the basic damage seem to keep ignoring tactical considerations like time, effort, chance of success (vs skill roll) even when they account for cost.
Shard O'Glase said:
Sure poly other still can do more but poly other is way overpowered for a 4th level spell anyway.
Its probably about time we point out that we are, AGAIN, not building poly other here. this attack will only work on humans. It will only change them into carps. Nothing like the versatility of the DND spell.
I can only guess the fact that this spell is so unlike the DND spell is the primary reason we keep getting the "well since you want DND" nonsense.
Shard O'Glase said:
Also that transform is only defended by power defense, the swords, staves etc used get an opponents PD or ED natural and their armor as well. So a HKA or eb or club is likely to drop a schmuck in one hit but very unlikely to drop a hero in one hit.
Well if we want to start talking attacking HERos then we suddenly start talking defenses.
I raised that earlier.
How much power defense would it take to practically eliminate the two cumulative transforms? 5 pts. Cost 5 points. No END cost.
How much defense would it cost to stop the 7d6 firebolt? 24 pts. Cost 24 points. End (0-5 per round depending on what form it took.)
Seems like again the ADVANTAGE goes to the EB by a significant factor.
And yes while a HERO will have more stun and thus take even more hits to drop, he will also likely have more body and thus we reach parity again. unless the character bought up stun and left body low, which is VERY unusual and inefficient for a fantasy level game, it should at least balance out.
Shard O'Glase said:
Oh and by the way in 5th edition transform has cumalitive built into the power, though it is obvious what is ahppening and who is the cuase of it so you better hope you transform your opponent before he kills you.
I was wondering what they had decided upon. As i mentioned earlier there were problems in HERO 4 with cumulative working one way for transform and another for mental powers. Glad to see they came down on this side.
So if i read the numbers right. now we would have in HERO5 a 2d6+1 transform human to carp for 35 points which would take three attacks to carp a commoner vs a 7d6 EB which would normally knock him out in one and if you absolutely had to a second blast would leave KOed for the combat.
The transform would only work against humans, not elves, not fragons, not kobolds and the Eb would do fine vs all these plus trees walls etc.
Again i stand firmly by my initial assessment.
HERO keeps damage-duh-boom-simple attacks very efficient and rewards them and encourages them and leaves most "effect" offenses out of the picture in terms of being viable or at least competitive.
Shard O'Glase said:
I could go on but I'm not nearly as long winded as some.
You had few points, you covered them, albeit incompletelyl.
I would have preferred you present a more balanced side, like at least mentioning the downsides of the high AP, since that directly affects the comparison, or to have mentioned that the limitations to reduce cost applies to both the carp and the Eb so that it really isn't just a one sided thing.
Leaving out the downsides of your notions in the system, which would only be immediately obvious to those with system jknowledge, looks misleading and while i am sure it was just cut for brevity and not as an attempt to present a skewed image, it can confuse people and looks less like a reasoned assessment and more like propoganda. (Particularly the part about ignoring the negative impact of the high AP on the limitation, skill roll, you chose to use in your example.)
Me, i prefer brevity, but not at the expense of a balance or accuracy.