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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elric" data-source="post: 4393895" data-attributes="member: 1139">I asked Matt about this, actually- besides Control Freak all of our opponents this fight were all PL 11 (he tried to post about this, but the boards ate the post).Honestly, if hero points were not stronger when used on defense than when used on attack, fights would be too short, as there would be no incentive to save HP for defensive uses.  That's what you ran into here.  That said, had you used Extra Effort to Surge and hit him a second time you would have dealt him 17 more damage against which he wouldn't have been able to use Improved Roll (having already used it for the round).  That would have had a good chance of taking him out.  And at 17 damage CF could have easily still been stunned by the attack after rerolling his save (he actually took a bruise even on the reroll).  Generally, gaining a feat with Heroic Feat isn’t a great option if you’re only going to use it for one attack—but if you’re going to use it for two with Extra Effort it starts to look a lot better.  You have to be a little more clever about using HP on offense to get full effect out of them.  But it's harder for players to use conditional tactics like this in an online game.  By comparison, it's much easier for a GM to use good villain tactics, since he has the advantage of getting to make his decisions in real game-time (and doesn't have to generally specify rerolls in advance, and so on).   Also, unlike table-top gaming, the GM doesn’t run into time problems while trying to do tactics for all the villains, many of whom he hasn’t built and/or has never run in a combat (in table-top games, I’m a much worse tactician when GM than when I’m a player).By the way, I think that had you moved and then Surged to coup de grace the bound Control Freak (as a full-action), that would have knocked him out almost for sure. Fiat isn’t limited to once an encounter per villain.  It’s just like hero points, once per personal round per function.  See my points above about HP on offense vs. defense.Lastly the problem that you note where the GM can’t run out of fiats for a character but we can run out of HP is particularly pronounced in these huge 8-on-8 style fights, where the course of the combat is much more likely to leave a few PCs out of HP and a few PCs with more HP than they need, but not that much good stuff to do with those HP.   He didn’t do all of that in one round.  For how he immobilized your visor/suit in general: Control Freak is a nearly plot-level powerful technopath.  His technopath abilities are one of the most powerful things we’ve seen this whole campaign, from anyone.  As I pointed out above, you lost a round due to not posting an action for it, and then Matt just mixed up your initiative order in a later round, which actually worked to your benefit in practice (though generally that would work to your detriment…).  This fight was run pretty badly in general, but I know Matt’s been very busy recently and by the time the next fight rolls around it will be run better.</blockquote>

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