Accesable ot Inaccesable focus?

[Tauman.EXE]

I have a player that want to by a whole lot of shurikens with the OAF limitations. As the GM I would have no problem limiting him from it but there is a problem, on this page there is an example here. (http://www.herogames.com/digitalHero/Samples/dh22deceiver.jsp)

Well ofc a shuriken should be acceable, but he 32 of them, IMO there should be quite har do take away 32 shurikens.. or did I misunderstand the rules?

[Shaft]

Shuriken are indeed OAF, since they can be taken away from the character in combat with no significant penalty to the attacker. It comes down to how are the shuriken stored. Are they all in a single pouch? Are they grouped in sets of 4 or 5 in various pockets around his costume?

The limitation is partially offset by the fact that there are 32 recoverable charges, which is a +3/4 advantage that is applied before the -1 limitation that OAF provides.

Remember also that the more spread out the ninja stars are, the harder it is to fire multiple shuriken at a time. If the character has 32 individual pouches, if he has an autofire attack or wants to draw several shuriken at a time and do a sweep attack, but the individual stars are stored seperately, it would make sense that it takes him longer to draw them all. If he keeps them together in pouches, well, an enemy can pull out several of them at a time if the enemy gets close enough to grab foci.

It might make sense for the character to bundle his stars in groups of 4 or 5 and use the clips option under charges (8 clips of 4 stars as opposed to 32 straight charges) whihc adds another +1/4 to the cost.

[schir1964]

I have a player that want to by a whole lot of shurikens with the OAF limitations. As the GM I would have no problem limiting him from it but there is a problem, on this page there is an example here. (http://www.herogames.com/digitalHero/Samples/dh22deceiver.jsp)

Well ofc a shuriken should be acceable, but he 32 of them, IMO there should be quite har do take away 32 shurikens.. or did I misunderstand the rules?
Normally, if the OAF is taken on the Mulitpower Pool, it means that once the total number of uses is used up (culmulative of all uses of all slots), then nothing in the pool can be used again until they restock.

Whether this sample build is appropriate for SFX trying to be simulated is another issue altogether.

- Christopher Mullins

[Outsider]

I'd just tell him that his shuriken are on a bandolier that can be taken away (in its entirety) by one grab, if he takes OAF. If he wants enemies to have to use 32 grabs to get them all, then basically it isnt accessible anymore, and he gets OIF.

[Kelcyron]

Normally, if the OAF is taken on the Mulitpower Pool, it means that once the total number of uses is used up (culmulative of all uses of all slots), then nothing in the pool can be used again until they restock.

Whether this sample build is appropriate for SFX trying to be simulated is another issue altogether.

- Christopher Mullins

Only if you take "X charges total for reserve" on the reserve pool. You can take take charges on the individual slots and have each slot have it's own set of charges.

Kelcyron

[TheUnknown]

if he buys each shuriken seperate with OAF then each one is its own focus other than that run it how it makes since for your game. Because in a fantasy setting you would have to pay money for each Shuriken and then based on where you kept them would determine how easy it would be to take them.

[Sean Waters]

A ninja taking increased stun multiple on killing attacks?

How strange.

They are OIF if they can't be taken away in one go with a grab manouvre. There is some discussion about utility reduction on page 295 of the book.

However they are still one power, not 32 seperate powers, so, quite apart from the fact that they are, or are not accessible, they can be targetted and destroyed by a single attack that does more than 12 BODY. You can get around this by purchasing the 'focus' limtiation at a further -1/4, which in this case is -1/4 total, probably. I'd certainly allow that.

[ghost-angel]

I would rule that if one is in his hand and targeted he loses one. If someone goes after the whole group he loses all of them. And of course things bow down to dramatic sense - if he throws one and then someone takes his shuriken stash and he recovers that one thrown he has 1 at his disposal until the rest can be recovered.

Or you could steal, say, half his stash in one of those "Frame up" scenarios, as his rival leaves one of his shuriken at the scenes of various crimes.

[Sean Waters]

I'd argue that you don't need to invoke dramatic sense: although a character can have his OAF (even 32 shuriken) taken away with a single grab or targetted attack, the rules don;t require that the whole power is removed in one go, and allow the option of some lesser penalty, as Dust Raven suggests.

Whenever I see 'dramatic sense' I think 'fire brigade': if we were more careful in the first place it would rarely be needed.:drink:

[Dust Raven]

Even if there are several foci because of charges, the Power can still be Accessible for reasons other than takawayability. If the character is Entangled or Grabbed for example, can the character use the shuriken? Probably not. Also, one of the main aspects of takawayability is how long it takes to remove the focus. Maybe it only takes a Phase to remove all his shuriken, and maybe it still only requires a normal Grab roll. Also, unless he's actually holding on to all of them, any GM would be justified in denying the character a STR Roll to retain a shuriken he's not actively holding, or only allowing Casual STR instead of full STR, so the value of Accessible could still be valid.

[ghost-angel]

Whenever I see 'dramatic sense' I think 'fire brigade': if we were more careful in the first place it would rarely be needed.:drink:

I see it as the application of common sense over the rules.

[Dust Raven]

and allow the option of some lesser penalty, as Dust Raven suggests.

Are you suddenly psychic? I hadn't suggested anything yet.

[Sean Waters]

Are you suddenly psychic? I hadn't suggested anything yet.

Sorry: ghost-angel - I still haven't fully recovered from your odd merging :D

[Sean Waters]

Even if there are several foci because of charges, the Power can still be Accessible for reasons other than takawayability. If the character is Entangled or Grabbed for example, can the character use the shuriken? Probably not. Also, one of the main aspects of takawayability is how long it takes to remove the focus. Maybe it only takes a Phase to remove all his shuriken, and maybe it still only requires a normal Grab roll. Also, unless he's actually holding on to all of them, any GM would be justified in denying the character a STR Roll to retain a shuriken he's not actively holding, or only allowing Casual STR instead of full STR, so the value of Accessible could still be valid.

I'm not sure that a focus that can't be used when entangeld or grabbed shouldn't have the 'restrainable' lim as well as 'focus' - I don't think 'accessability' addresses restraint - except through 'common sense' - and I'd rather distinguish in the build if at all possible.

[Robyn]

I see it as the application of common sense over the rules.

In other words, and going from your past replies, a fire brigade ;)

[Dust Raven]

Sorry: ghost-angel - I still haven't fully recovered from your odd merging :D

:eg: Mwhahahahahahaha! :eg:

[Dust Raven]

I'm not sure that a focus that can't be used when entangeld or grabbed shouldn't have the 'restrainable' lim as well as 'focus' - I don't think 'accessability' addresses restraint - except through 'common sense' - and I'd rather distinguish in the build if at all possible.

Focus does address this. I'd reference the page number, but I don't have my books at work.

[ghost-angel]

Focus does address this. I'd reference the page number, but I don't have my books at work.

Under Entagle (5ER p167); OAF cannot normally be used to break an entagle, unless SFX dictates otherwise. FREX a gun, if it's not drawn and your arms are entagled you're not going to be able to use it; but if you're legs are Entagled you could.

This is a case where How SFX Interact comes into play.

[Dust Raven]

Under Entagle (5ER p167); OAF cannot normally be used to break an entagle, unless SFX dictates otherwise. FREX a gun, if it's not drawn and your arms are entagled you're not going to be able to use it; but if you're legs are Entagled you could.

This is a case where How SFX Interact comes into play.

Thanks.

Also, under the Focus description of Accessible Foci (5ER p 292), it says "easily taken away from the character, or of whose benefit the character can easily be deprived." The last paragraph also states than what might be considered an Inaccessible Foci could be labled as Accessible if it is easily damaged or destroyed. The bottom line is that if the Focus is easily disabled in some way, it's Accessible rather than Inaccessible.

[Sean Waters]

Under Entagle (5ER p167); OAF cannot normally be used to break an entagle, unless SFX dictates otherwise. FREX a gun, if it's not drawn and your arms are entagled you're not going to be able to use it; but if you're legs are Entagled you could.

This is a case where How SFX Interact comes into play.

Thanks for the reference. I did know that I was just blanking it out. Wouldn't it be nice if all the rules were in one place?

Trouble is if your OAF is a magical crown that just requires you to be in contact with it, there is no good reason that being entangled should prevent you using it, so OAF works differently for some concepts than for others, which is a real bugbear for me: whilst I fully acknowledge that dust-angel-ghost-raven was right, I would rather see restrainability issues removed from focus and left with the 'restrainable' limitation, event hough there has to be some overlap it would be nice for it to be minimised.

[ghost-angel]

Thanks for the reference. I did know that I was just blanking it out. Wouldn't it be nice if all the rules were in one place?

Trouble is if your OAF is a magical crown that just requires you to be in contact with it, there is no good reason that being entangled should prevent you using it, so OAF works differently for some concepts than for others, which is a real bugbear for me: whilst I fully acknowledge that dust-angel-ghost-raven was right, I would rather see restrainability issues removed from focus and left with the 'restrainable' limitation, event hough there has to be some overlap it would be nice for it to be minimised.

I agree. It should be a case of "Focii are not inherently restrainable unless the GM feels SFX dictates otherwise." Not the other way around as it is worded.

[Dust Raven]

dust-angel-ghost-raven

Don't make us merge again... :eg:

[Dust Raven]

In the case of a crown...

As a quasi house rule, I've added an additional category to Accessible Foci. It deals with how it's used. If you don't have to actually hold it and manipulate it, then you can still use it when you're Entangled or Grabbed, but you don't get your STR to hold on if it's attacked or grabbed separate from you. So far it's worked out nicely in game.

[Robyn]

As a quasi house rule, I've added an additional category to Accessible Foci. It deals with how it's used. If you don't have to actually hold it and manipulate it,

I've been wondering how to build one of those, by the way. I have in mind one of those ancient underground temples, where the team is confronting the evil priest who guards the relics they want to steal (yes, very Indiana Jones), and the priest summons up phantom warriors from the past to defend his temple. The power comes from a gemstone which is embedded in the forehead of one of the statues, though, and it can easily be destroyed if the PC's figure out the priest isn't the source of the effect (IPE on the Summon, the Focus is Fragile), so the priest is using it without actually touching it.

[ghost-angel]

I've been wondering how to build one of those, by the way. I have in mind one of those ancient underground temples, where the team is confronting the evil priest who guards the relics they want to steal (yes, very Indiana Jones), and the priest summons up phantom warriors from the past to defend his temple. The power comes from a gemstone which is embedded in the forehead of one of the statues, though, and it can easily be destroyed if the PC's figure out the priest isn't the source of the effect (IPE on the Summon, the Focus is Fragile), so the priest is using it without actually touching it.

That's simply SFX. I would add Bulky:Immovable to the Focus to show that it's part of the statue.

In cases like this it's generally assumed the user has to be within Line Of Sight of the focus, or at least in the room with it.

[Dust Raven]

I've been wondering how to build one of those, by the way. I have in mind one of those ancient underground temples, where the team is confronting the evil priest who guards the relics they want to steal (yes, very Indiana Jones), and the priest summons up phantom warriors from the past to defend his temple. The power comes from a gemstone which is embedded in the forehead of one of the statues, though, and it can easily be destroyed if the PC's figure out the priest isn't the source of the effect (IPE on the Summon, the Focus is Fragile), so the priest is using it without actually touching it.


That's simply SFX. I would add Bulky:Immovable to the Focus to show that it's part of the statue.

In cases like this it's generally assumed the user has to be within Line Of Sight of the focus, or at least in the room with it.


Or buy the Summon as part of the temple (buy the temple as a Base), and it just happens to be the case the high priest has the skill necessary to use it. This makes it really fun if one of the player characters also has the skill. Makes things interesting that way, like at the end of The Mummy (1999).

[pinecone]

I'd just tell him that his shuriken are on a bandolier that can be taken away (in its entirety) by one grab, if he takes OAF. If he wants enemies to have to use 32 grabs to get them all, then basically it isnt accessible anymore, and he gets OIF.

Yeah I often use OIF: A buncha foci (each of which is OAF in it's self)

[Robyn]

Yeah I often use OIF: A buncha foci (each of which is OAF in it's self)

Even using the doubling rules for equipment, this looks expensive. Perhaps, if the collective items are taken as a group, some sort of 1:3 or 1:5 reduction is in order?

[ghost-angel]

Even using the doubling rules for equipment, this looks expensive. Perhaps, if the collective items are taken as a group, some sort of 1:3 or 1:5 reduction is in order?

No cost reduction. OIF: Lotsa tiny things is a perfectly acceptable form of the Focus Limitation. Like, for instance, 32 Shuriken. Sure you can take one away as an OAF, but that leaves 31 more. . . hence OIF.

[JmOz]

In the case of a crown...

As a quasi house rule, I've added an additional category to Accessible Foci. It deals with how it's used. If you don't have to actually hold it and manipulate it, then you can still use it when you're Entangled or Grabbed, but you don't get your STR to hold on if it's attacked or grabbed separate from you. So far it's worked out nicely in game.

Good common sense rule, consider yourself Repped