Bug: Negative Characteristics Bought As Powers

[Vondy]

I have a feeling this is a "by design" issue, but I thought I would call it out.

I was building a character who is less intelligent and attractive when he is in his heroic identity (he also becomes uber-brick).

My initial thought was to by back the characteristics in the powers tab (because then I could have the altered characteristic display as a secondary value).

It worked as expected and showed up correctly on the characteristics tab(vunderbar!) with one notable exception:

HD assigned a positive cost to the negative value being applied to the characteristic OHID (the -8 modifier attached to intelligence when in hero ID showed up as a cost of 8), when it should have been a negative cost.

I was able to do a work around by creating a custom power, but that doesn't display on the characteristics tab.

I know this seems odd, but it was the most straightforward to build the character and get the program to do what I wanted.

Is this a bug or a design issue?

/EDIT - when I'm saying "negative characteristic" I really mean lowered characteristic. The character goes from a 16 INT to an 8 INT in hero id

[Killer Shrike]

HD shouldnt allow you to buy negative characteristics as powers at all -- that functionality was removed earlier in v2's build by direction of Steve L, as all Powers must cost at least 1 point.

To do the guy with situational lower stats, you need to buy his stats at their lower level on the characteristics tab, and then buy their higher value on the Powers tab limited appropriately.

Thus, a character that is 10 STR and 20 INT in his "normal" form and 25 STR 5 INT in his "HID" could be bought with base 10 STR and base 5 INT on the characteristics tab, with +15 STR as a Power OIHID, and +15 INT OnlyNotInHID (-1/4 or greater, GM's call regarding frequency).

This looks weird on the character sheet, but it's legal.

[Ben Seeman]

Originally posted by Von D-Man
My initial thought was to by back the characteristics in the powers tab (because then I could have the altered characteristic display as a secondary value).

HD assigned a positive cost to the negative value being applied to the characteristic OHID (the -8 modifier attached to intelligence when in hero ID showed up as a cost of 8), when it should have been a negative cost.
Are you saying that you were able to buy a negative Characteristic as a Power? HD shouldn't be doing that. Can you post the character in question?

Thanks.

*EDIT: Which version of Hero Designer are you using?

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Are you saying that you were able to buy a negative Characteristic as a Power? HD shouldn't be doing that. Can you post the character in question?

Thanks.

*EDIT: Which version of Hero Designer are you using?

V2.25

Character to follow.

[Vondy]

Okay - I'm not getting consistent behavior. When I went to edit the character back (I had replaced the characteristic buy backs with custom powers to get the math right) it would only let me buy back COM. Last night I did both INT and COM. I did a run through on all the stats with this boot and COM is the only one with the back arrow active.

The funny thing is that I actually <i>wanted</i> the app to do this and the only reason I said anything at all was that the math wasn't right. Oh well.

[Ben Seeman]

Everything is functioning as it should. Are you still experiencing problems or issues?

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Everything is functioning as it should. Are you still experiencing problems or issues?

I haven't downloaded 2.26. I'll let you know tonight when I install it.

[Vondy]

I can purchase negative comliness as a power (at positive cost) in 2.26. None of the other characteristics allow this behavior. Is this correct?

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Von D-Man
I can purchase negative comliness as a power (at positive cost) in 2.26. None of the other characteristics allow this behavior. Is this correct? Negative Comliness costs points past IIRC -0, as it grants PRE Bonuses only to frighten.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Negative Comliness costs points past IIRC -0, as it grants PRE Bonuses only to frighten. In other words, negative comliness that costs points is a legal power because Powers must cost at least 1 point.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Negative Comliness costs points past IIRC -0, as it grants PRE Bonuses only to frighten.

This takes the character from 18 to 8 at a cost of 5 points.

I can do what I want with a custom power.

Shouldn't it only charge you if you actually go into negatives?

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Von D-Man
This takes the character from 18 to 8 at a cost of 5 points.

I can do what I want with a custome power.

Shouldn't it only charge you if you actually go into negatives? What Im saying is that it allows you to buy it negative for COM bcs once it starts costing points its legal. Up until that point its not technically legal. Maybe COM as a power bought negatively should automatically set itself to the negative increment where it costs 1 pt.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
What Im saying is that it allows you to buy it negative for COM bcs once it starts costing points its legal. Up until that point its not technically legal. Maybe COM as a power bought negatively should automatically set itself to the negative increment where it costs 1 pt.

I will leave that to Ben & Dan.

I ran across this because I wanted a way to express a character's loss on INT and COM when in Hero ID that showed up as a secondary characteristic - just like their increased stats in hero id showed up (I know thats not really on par with technical hero legality, but that's how I found it).

The character isn't really a multiform character since they have no personality loss and keep all their skills. I can properly reflect the math (negative cost in hero id) with a custom power, but I can't make it show up as a secondary stat this way.

I think the best solution for this is to only allow them to buy negative comliness as a power if they've already bought their COM back to 0 on the characteristics tab.

What I want to do is probably a feature request - the ability to have a value in a custom power be reflected as a secondary characteristic.

I could also buy down the characteristics to the in hero id level and then purchase the stats in their normal form as powers with not in hero id, but that seems really clunky and counter intuitive.

[Ben Seeman]

Per Steve:

Negative COM as a Power costs points immediately, regardless of the value of the COM Characteristic.

There is a distinct difference between Characteristics and Characteristics as Powers.

[Vondy]

Ill be going with the clunky, counter intuitive work around then. I won't pay points for a <i>loss</i> in effectiveness (the only mechanical result is a lower com roll (oddly those do come up in my game from time to time).

I'll just buy the stat down to what it is in his Hero ID (8) and then purchase the additional 10 points for his secret id with the lim "only in normal ID."

I think its dumb that the only way to do something that is conceptually very simple requires a mechanics kludge in the rules, but its not worth my time to argue about, either.

[Silbeg]

Originally posted by Von D-Man

I'll just buy the stat down to what it is in his Hero ID (8) and then purchase the additional 10 points for his secret id with the lim "only in normal ID."

That is exactly how such a construct should be purchased. For what it matters, I ruled that "Only in Normal ID" was also a -1/4 limitation in my Champions game. There wasn't any squabbling, as the characteristic was comeliness, and the player want his hero ID to be less attractive, but also remember that a character usually spends more time in normal ID than HERO (often considerably more), even though that portion of his life is likely not being role-played as often.

Silbeg...

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Silbeg
That is exactly how such a construct should be purchased.

So it <i>should</i> be a complete kludge?

Not a very good answer IMHO.

[Silbeg]

based purely on the rules, this is not a kludge, but the proper way to do it. Of course, if it is your game, you can always adopt a house rule to change that.

Don't let the rules mess with your fun...

Silbeg...