How Long Does It Take?

[Misery Lad]

Once again, I may be dredging up something that's been covered before (though, perhaps not in the context of 5th Edition). We'll see.

Currently, I'm building a super-speed character and I found myself hung at one particular issue - namely, how to quantify super-speed mundane tasks. I already know about cleaning the room through Change Environment thing but I was more concerned with other, less-vague tasks, such as repairing a car or building furniture.

It comes down to this. I could, I suppose, just buy the basic skill needed and then buy levels for those skills that cost Endurance to use (SFX = multiple super-speed attempts that shake out as one overall mega-attempt) but I don't see how that really answers the question of time. Namely, how does having super-speed cut down on the time it generally takes to do a task? Having extra levels for a skill doesn't necessarily mean that you can perform the skill abnormally fast. It just means that you know more about the ends and outs of how to perform the skill at all.

I seem to recall that the MEGS system for DC Heroes had an AP base that assigned a number of APs to a given task and then had you subtract the APs of your Super Speed from that total. The new APs then roughly equalled the amount of time it would really take you to perform the task. Any ideas on how to garner this approach for Champions or does someone know of a better way that's more in line with Hero's native foundation? :think:

[Zed-F]

You can just buy PSLs to counteract penalties from moving up the time chart on tasks. If you want to do something that would normally take 30 minutes in 5, that's going up one level on the time chart and imposes a penalty accordingly, you can just buy PSLs to counter the penalty.

[Blue]

If you have the amount of time it takes for actions broken down into phases then a character with a high SPD will invariably complete it faster. Of course he still requires a roll to complete it correctly.

[Acroyear]

I did it with Transform, minor "only to re-arrange existing materials." This allows you to sort stacks of papers, write a letter really fast, conduct repairs on a vehicle (assuming you had the needed tools and parts), build card houses, etc. The bigger the job, the more cumulative applications of the power you need. Complex tasks require an applicable skill roll (eg - building a car engine, disassembling a bomb). It's also easy to guess how long a task takes because you can apply the avg roll of your transform to the amount of bdy pips you're manipulating.

I used an AE version for things like reorganizing a room and such. I'm not sure Change Enviornment lets you do that sort of thing, really, but I'm never all that sure any more with all the weird stuff that's been introduced into 5th.

[TheEmerged]

Another way to represent the influence of superspeed on mundane tasks is Extra Limbs, bought with Invisible Power Effects. The is useful for times when the character is doing more with their hands than is otherwise possible. One applicable example is inserting dozens of fuses onto a switchbox at once.

[RDU Neil]

While I love speedsters... they are a nightmare concept in an RPG environment. They beg a lot of questions that begin to deconstruct their feasibility as presented in the comics.

1. They are a horrible mixed bag of "real physics" and "super physics" which opens up a lot of questions like "Just because you can move really fast, what does that mean you can DO really fast?"

2. How over the top are you going. While I love the Flash in costume and history, his powers were so ungodly if you stop to think about them, they are unplayable in an RPG. My speedsters would exist more at the Quicksilver level... nothing like the speed of light stuff.

3. Just because you can move fast, does that mean you can move other things at the same speed? What about inertia... even with a piece of paper, the faster you move the more everything else becomes inertially stuck... does this mean you need super strength to move them, as they become relatively heavier the faster you go?

4. Oh yeah... relativity... does that apply at all? How about simple friction? Breathing while moving that fast... being able to see, smell, sense things that are passing you in a blur? And then how do you react in time? (Just because you can run fast, doesn't automatically mean your reaction time has increased...)

5. Finally... there is just the conceptual consistency. While you could buy Transform: Broken car to fixed car, Extra phase... to make fixing a car take from 2 to 4 seconds depending on your SPD... how can you then not justify being able to do everything that fast? The SFX just becomes so illogical as to be ludicrous. (I guess, for me, there is a strict limit about what goes too far in a supers world...)

In the end, I've always found myself sticking to Quicksilver level speedsters, who run and react very fast, but nothing like the absurdity rampant with the Flash (building bridges over a river in a few seconds... including studying structural engineering to figure out how to do that... or emptying a city of people in the time it takes a nuclear blast to go from trigger to detonation. That stuff is so dumb... because it forces you to ask "If the Flash can do that... how is there anything he CAN'T do. It's so incomprehensible, it becomes an exercise in absurdity, not a dramatic game of adventure."

Personally... to fix a car fast... I'd estimate something like "Ok... a two SPD person would take three hours... so a 12 SPD equally skilled individual could do it six times as fast... or a sixth of the time... so thirty minutes. Caps only unscrew so fast, and oil only drains so fast, etc. Yes... this may be putting in too much realism for you... but I've found that the only way to make speedsters playable... bring them down to a comprehensible level of what "fast" means.

YMMV

[BNakagawa]

A lot of it actually depends on SFX.

Someone who is only capable of moving himself faster than normal can't do much to speed up the cooking of a three minute egg.

Someone who actually manipulates the flow of time in his vicinity can.

[Mister E]

You can just buy PSLs to counteract penalties from moving up the time chart on tasks. If you want to do something that would normally take 30 minutes in 5, that's going up one level on the time chart and imposes a penalty accordingly, you can just buy PSLs to counter the penalty.

:celebrate Yes. Using Penalty Skill Levels is the way to go. If you bought the 3pt, (+1 to offest Time Chart Penalty modifier with all skills) PSL, you wouldn't be any better with those skills, but you would be faster, potentially exponentially WAY faster. See pg 28 (The Time Chart, under Skill Modifiers), and of course Penalty Skill Levels on pg 46.

There are other ways of simulating this (Transforms and Change Environments), not none, IMO, are as elegant.

[Misery Lad]

Thanks, everyone. I think that Penalty Skill Levels idea is a good one.

As an aside to RDU Neil, this is the second time I've heard about the Flash doing that and, quite frankly...wha? Was this something he did in the comics (if so, which issue?)? That sounds every bit as bad as the very worst of the over-the-top Silver Age antics (remember Superman causing Earth to "dodge" a laser beam from space by pushing the whole planet to one side? Hoody-Hoo!). I wouldn't blame you for feeling the way you do. You know, the scary thing is, the Mayfair DC Heroes system did such a good job of emulating the "glossy miracles" approach of the characters that such a thing in that game would actually be possible, given enough APs of Super Speed. I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of Power Advantage monstrosity you'd have to construct to achieve the same thing in the Hero System.

Of course, I'm saying all of this without having seen the sequence with the Flash or truly understanding the context. My reaction is thus a knee jerk. Mayhap I would feel differently were I to see how the writer and artist pulled it off (though I doubt it).

[Dust Raven]

How physics, comic book or otherwise, apply to a speedster depend mostly upon the SFX and what the GM and Player see the character as being capable of. The only trick is simulating those actions, accurately and completely, using the rules.

Some of my favorite Speedster Tricks include both the Change Environment and Transform for altering surroundings. Each can be used for different effects, and both can be put on the same speedster.

Other logical powers for speedsters that can "keep up" with their own movement can include:

Hypersenses: Rapid for All Sense Groups (Sight, Hearing, Smell/Taste & Touch, more if the character possess more).

Fast Hands: Extra Limbs (as many as needed; as described by TheEmerged, though since you can see "many limbs" in motion as it's being used, IPE isn't necessary), Cost END.

Quick Look: +4 to Sight PER Rolls (to simulate that he can take in as much detail in one Phase as most can by taking a minute or so)

[RDU Neil]

Thanks, everyone. I think that Penalty Skill Levels idea is a good one.

As an aside to RDU Neil, this is the second time I've heard about the Flash doing that and, quite frankly...wha? Was this something he did in the comics (if so, which issue?)? That sounds every bit as bad as the very worst of the over-the-top Silver Age antics (remember Superman causing Earth to "dodge" a laser beam from space by pushing the whole planet to one side? Hoody-Hoo!). I wouldn't blame you for feeling the way you do. You know, the scary thing is, the Mayfair DC Heroes system did such a good job of emulating the "glossy miracles" approach of the characters that such a thing in that game would actually be possible, given enough APs of Super Speed. I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of Power Advantage monstrosity you'd have to construct to achieve the same thing in the Hero System.

Of course, I'm saying all of this without having seen the sequence with the Flash or truly understanding the context. My reaction is thus a knee jerk. Mayhap I would feel differently were I to see how the writer and artist pulled it off (though I doubt it).


Both of the instances were in relatively recent comics... the bridge building was the lame-a$$ end to an otherwise great story arc in Flash around issue 195 or so... and the atomic bomb thing was in an issue of JLA, I think.

I love the term "glossy miracles" and would basically say that I find those going beyond the realm of fantastic into ludicrous and absurd... not a place where I'm at all interested in gaming. YMMV

[TheEmerged]

RE: Atomic Blast Thing. It was the conclusion to the JL-Ape crossover event a couple of years back. Technically he was speeding up Wonder Woman to help (she's a low-end speedster herself, remember) and also had a couple of others helping...