Watch Tower House Rules

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House Rules

Every gamer has their own house rules they like to play by. As all Watch Tower players know, we have our own mish-mash of official rules that we use. I've talked with Brian several time about my taking a turn at GMing in the Watch Tower Universe, and he's been very open to it. These are the house rules that I will use when I GM.

Inviolate Rules of the Watch Tower Universe

Combat Skill Levels as Damage Classes: These Hero System optional rules are in effect for HTH attacks. They can increase the number of Damage Classes of a attack or increase the Body damage roll of Killing Attacks.

Language Familiarity: The Hero System optional Language Familiarity rules are in effect. This can increase or decrease the effective point cost of a Language skill. Literacy is free.

Use of Hit Locations: Killing Attacks always use the Hero System Hit Location table. No other attack automatically uses it, but Called Shots are still permitted.

The Tech Paradigm

The Watch Tower Universe tech paradigm essentially works like this:

No advanced tech is mass producable. For one reason or another it can't be done. Reason varies case by case.
Super Tech often has no relation to anything 'realistic' in how it works.
No one thinks to try and mass produce this stuff. Even if they did, it would fail. Similarly, no one thinks to exploit captured tech unless for use in an 'origin story'.

House Rules Which May be Used While I GM

A Delayed Phase is a Delayed Phase is a Delayed Phase: I've never seen a rule which says that a phase may not be delayed past segment twelve and in to the next turn. If someone can point that rule out to me, please do. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned the "end of a turn" and "Post-Segment 12" are arbitrary constructs and therefore will have no effect on which phases can be delayed and for how long.
Additionally, "turns" will be measured in twelve segments. Thus, if a character wishes to take extra time to accomplish a task or move one unit down the time chart, the action will occur twelve segments later. E.g. a character can attempt to resist Mind Control immediately, one phase later, and one turn later. If a SPD 5 character is Mind Controlled on segment 2, he gets an Ego roll to break free immediately, on Phase 3 (his next full phase) and on Phase 3 of the next turn (12 segments later).

Teleport v. Force Wall: A Hardened Force Wall will block Teleport. One level of Armor Piercing will penetrate one level of Hardened Force Wall.

Double Knockback: The Double Knockback advantage applies only to knockback. It does not affect any other aspects of the modified power. If a character wants to have a improved knockback and throwing distance with Strength, then buy extra Strength, with the -1/2 limitation "only for knockback and throwing". Increased leaping distance should be bought as Superleap.
Originally, Kodiak Steel had the Double Knockback advantage on his Strength. As a group, we began to experiment with what this actually meant and at one time we decided it allowed double knockback (as normal) but also doubled the calculated throwing distance of objects and we considered but never ruled on the idea that it might double leaping distance. Unfortunately, this was determined to be much to powerful, and it forced a change in Kodiak Steel between Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the campaign (provided by his battle with Taurus, which was resolved in a backstory rather than an actual game session). This meant that Kodiak Steel could throw a victim 20" for up to 20d6 if thrown against a hard enough object (like an Army tank). Fortunately most objects won't be that strong and damage will rarely exceed 10d6 (see the Breaking Things chapter). Note also that Knockback straight down (and presumably something thrown straight down) only does 1d6 per 2".

If you can spread an EB?...: Page 151 of the BBB discusses the optional rule of spreading an energy blast. This permits the sacrifice of dice to gain another combat advantage - greater OCV or limited Area Effect. While the optional rule explicit states that only Energy Blasts can be spread and other attacks require the Area Effect advantage, this leaves me unsatisified as both a player and an afficionado of character design. Therefore, I propose that any ranged attack can be spread, with the following parameters. Any attack power which has a base cost of 5 points per die before Modifiers, loses 1d6 to gain +1 OCV or 1 hex area effect. If the base cost per die is greater than 5 (e.g. 10 or 15), then it loses 1/2d6 of effect for each +1 OCV or 1 hex area effect. The END cost is paid for all the dice, not merely the dice of effect. Regardless of how many hexes the attack is spread, the attacker must roll to hit each target separately. Only ranged attacks can be "spread". If a character wants to affect multiple targets with a HTH attack, he should use the Sweep maneuver (BBB page 157). The Limitation "only when spreads attack" is worth -1/4.
Some examples:
Example 1: Mentallo wants to "persuade" a bunch of thugs to leave him alone. There are four thugs, spread across three hexes. Mentallo "spreads" 3d6 of his 10d6 Mind Control, and rolls an attack roll against each of the four thugs. If he hits, he affects each thug with a 7d6 Mind Control.
Example 2: Death Vixen is in a tough battle against Magpie. She is having an extremely difficult time hitting the agile tengu, so she decides to "spread" 1d6 of her 3d6 RKA to gain a +2 OCV. If Vixen hits, she does 2d6 Killing Attack.
Example 3: Herculan, having heard the reports of the amazing physical might of Team Beta's Towers of Power, decides to spread his ranged STR Transfer so he can attack both Guardian and Kodiak Steel at the same time. Sinces the heroes are maintaining a one hex distance between themselves, Herculan spreads his ranged STR Transfer for 1 1/2d6 to attack the three hexes (one per hero, with one in between). If Herculan hits, he affects each victim with a 1 1/2d6 STR Transfer.

Knockout Resistance: Just as Hand Attack is a variant on Strength (+5 Strength, -1/2 only for damage, q.v. Enemies III) so Knockout Resistance is a variant on Stun. Knockout Resistance moves the recovery point for unconscious characters. One point of Knockout Resistance moves the scale down one negative Stun point. Thus, if a character had 6 points of Knockout Resistance, he would recover onces per phase at 0 to -16 Stun, once per turn at -17 to -26 Stun, once per minute at -27 to -36 Stun and at GM's discretion at -37 Stun and lower. A character can purchase 3 points of Knockout Resistance for 2 character points. (+3 STUN, bends the rules +1/2, only when unconscious -1)