M&M Errors

[Corvidia]

As I've been going through the software to test its capabilities, a number of errors have come to my attention:

1 - The Aura extra should not require the power to be Sustained in duration. The Aura itself is Sustained, but the power's duration is per the power in question. (See p. 112 - Aura, specifically the example with Stun).

2 - Permanent powers should be able to be "reduced" to Continuous duration (a +1 extra) to further adjust duration for use in "container" powers (Such as Alternate Form.)

3 - Progression - Range and Increase Range power feats should be functionally identical (both increase the range increment of a Ranged power identically.)

As a quality of life issue, I have to say that it seems fundamentally flawed to use computer software to create an Area power, apply increased area Progression feats, and then have to perform the math by hand to calculate the area.

A second quality of life issue is the difficulty in using, and indeed understanding how to use, the editor makes this tool practically useless for anything beyond the core (house rules, powers created for the campaign, etc.)

And a final note: The ability to enter numeric values in the skill tab is nice. However, having it use that for the total bonus, rather thank "ranks" of skills means extra work, either in "fine tuning" with the buttons or in pre-calculating the desired bonus prior to entering text. Having the ability to either enter a number of ranks or number of power points spent on the skill would be of greater, and more intuitive, use.

 

[charlieluce]

You are incorrect on point #1; the description of Aura has been corrected in the Official Errata and the Third Printing.

On Point #2, buying the Duration Extra on a Permanent Power will make it Continuous.

On your last point, I find entering the total skill more useful than entering the ranks, though that's probably because I am building NPCs instead of PCs.

 

[Colen]

M&M Errors

Corvidia wrote:
>
>
> As I've been going through the software to test its capabilities, a
> number of errors have come to my attention:
>
> 1 - The Aura extra should not require the power to be Sustained in
> duration. The Aura itself is Sustained, but the power's duration is per
> the power in question. (See p. 112 - Aura, specifically the example with
> Stun).


This was errata'd, I think, to work the same way that it does in
Ultimate Power. The relevant errata is:

page 112 — Aura: Insert “sustained” between “range” and “power” in the
first sentence.

> 2 - Permanent powers should be able to be "reduced" to Continuous
> duration (a +1 extra) to further adjust duration for use in "container"
> powers (Such as Alternate Form.)


This should already be working - add the Duration extra to Additional
Limbs, a permanent power, and its duration changes to Sustained.


> 3 - Progression - Range and Increase Range power feats should be
> functionally identical (both increase the range increment of a Ranged
> power identically.)


I believe Improved Range increases the range increment, but Progression
only increases the range (as described by p110 of the core rulebook).


> As a quality of life issue, I have to say that it seems fundamentally
> flawed to use computer software to create an Area power, apply increased
> area Progression feats, and then have to perform the math by hand to
> calculate the area.


Yeah, we should be tracking that for you. I'll add that to the list of
things to fix.


> A second quality of life issue is the difficulty in using, and indeed
> understanding how to use, the editor makes this tool practically useless
> for anything beyond the core (house rules, powers created for the
> campaign, etc.)


We're constantly thinking about how we can improve the editor, and
fitting that into the regular Hero Lab updates. For example, the next
update of HL will include some minor editor tweaks to make it friendlier
to use; the update after that, we're planning to redesign it to make it
simpler. We have to strike a balance between spending time on the editor
(which not everyone will use) and working on the core M&M data files,
which have a lot more visibility.

What sort of things do you want to use the editor for that it doesn't
support? Maybe we can get some of them added.


> And a final note: The ability to enter numeric values in the skill tab
> is nice. However, having it use that for the total bonus, rather thank
> "ranks" of skills means extra work, either in "fine tuning" with the
> buttons or in pre-calculating the desired bonus prior to entering text.
> Having the ability to either enter a number of ranks or number of power
> points spent on the skill would be of greater, and more intuitive, use.


I agree; unfortunately, due to space constraints there isn't a good way
of allowing that on the Skills tab. I could switch to displaying each
skill with a full line, but that would waste a lot of space.

Maybe it's more logical to require the user to enter the number of PP
they want to spend, instead of the total rank of the skill. How would
you feel if, instead of being able to specify only the total skill, you
could specify only the number of ranks in it?



Hope this helps! Thanks for your feedback.

--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com