What powers frustrate u & disrupt your campaigns? [Archive]

RDU Neil

Feb 25th, '03, 11:23 AM

Strangly, yes... Hand Attacks are a problem because they are subtle. On paper, they look quite balanced... I mean, they are no different than an Energy Blast, right?

Unfortunately, no. Even with new, 5th Edition way of buying them, HAs quickly drive the Damage Class of attacks beyond the average for the campaign. The ability to add your STR to the damage done is just a huge advantage (especially since STR is so undercosted in the game.)

To this end, Hand Killing Attacks are also a bit unbalancing... but for some reason, my players look at a 2d6 HKA, and quickly see that it is really 3d6 to 4d6 Killing, and keep themselves in check.

Hand attacks just look so innocuous, that thirty points for 10d6 doesn't LOOK like much... until you realize that is a 25d6!!!!! attack with your 75 STR brick. (That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. It would easily fall within my campaigns average as two separate powers, but once used as intended, is WAY over powered.)

The fact is, HA should be, at least, four real cost per die, if not five. The ability to add your STR to the damage is just much bigger than is credited by the point cost. (Same could be said of HKA, again.)

As a GM, I just always have to check these two powers, closely.

Monolith

Feb 25th, '03, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by RDU Neil
Hand attacks just look so innocuous, that thirty points for 10d6 doesn't LOOK like much... until you realize that is a 25d6!!!!! attack with your 75 STR brick. (That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. It would easily fall within my campaigns average as two separate powers, but once used as intended, is WAY over powered.)
If your dice of damage are limited to 14 DC, as FREd suggests, then it really does not matter whether those 14 DCs come from STR, HTH Attacks, or something else like velocity from Stretching. The only way that 14 DC cap can be exceeded is with certain combat maneuvers (Haymaker, Move-Through, etc).

BarryB

Feb 25th, '03, 11:34 AM

It's hard to say. I think almost any power can be abused somehow. I've had problems with flight, running, energy blasts, and other powers.

I think defining the special effects carefully is important. That helps to avoid some of the problems that I've had with things like "I've got 12" of flight, usable on a surface. That means I can run on this frictionless surface. because it's flight and doesn't depend on having friction." (Example made up avoid any member in my current group)

I'm tempted sometimes to make everyone have "GM discretion" as a disad on every single power and characteristic. :)

RDU Neil

Feb 25th, '03, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by Monolith
If your dice of damage are limited to 14 DC, as FREd suggests, then it really does not matter whether those 14 DCs come from STR, HTH Attacks, or something else like velocity from Stretching. The only way that 14 DC cap can be exceeded is with certain combat maneuvers (Haymaker, Move-Through, etc).

But I've never needed caps on DCs before... because most of the time, point costs balance out. Put more points into attack, you will be vulnerable in other areas.

HAs and HKAs just give you more bang for you buck, because EVERYONE has at least 10 pts. of STR free... so both those powers start out with +2 DC... to their effect, for no points.

I'm actually trying a DC limit in part of my campaign, simply because of HAs... and I've never had to do this, before.

This is just my experience, and it is only recently become a problem. Others may never have an issue.

Gary

Feb 25th, '03, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by RDU Neil
Strangly, yes... Hand Attacks are a problem because they are subtle. On paper, they look quite balanced... I mean, they are no different than an Energy Blast, right?

Unfortunately, no. Even with new, 5th Edition way of buying them, HAs quickly drive the Damage Class of attacks beyond the average for the campaign. The ability to add your STR to the damage done is just a huge advantage (especially since STR is so undercosted in the game.)

To this end, Hand Killing Attacks are also a bit unbalancing... but for some reason, my players look at a 2d6 HKA, and quickly see that it is really 3d6 to 4d6 Killing, and keep themselves in check.

Hand attacks just look so innocuous, that thirty points for 10d6 doesn't LOOK like much... until you realize that is a 25d6!!!!! attack with your 75 STR brick. (That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. It would easily fall within my campaigns average as two separate powers, but once used as intended, is WAY over powered.)

The fact is, HA should be, at least, four real cost per die, if not five. The ability to add your STR to the damage is just much bigger than is credited by the point cost. (Same could be said of HKA, again.)

As a GM, I just always have to check these two powers, closely.

Remember, HA is based on Str with the no figured characteristics limitation. It's not even as useful as that, since it can't be used for lifting or breaking out of grabs or casual str.

Allowing a 75 str brick to have a 10d6 HA would be like allowing a 125 str brick in your campaign. If you wouldn't allow the 125 str, you shouldn't allow the 75 str with 10d6 HA.

Acroyear

Feb 25th, '03, 11:51 AM

None. Sometimes the GM will get frustrated if there's a totally invisible desolid guy running around... but he's not exactly doing anything like that anyway so it's not really an issue.

As for hand attacks... uh, just buy STR, not to figured and not only do you get more damage, but more lifting ability, better grabs, etc for the same cost. Raising the price of hand attacks wouldn't do much except change the way people buy extra HtH damage (in fact, HA is already not cost effective in comparison). Seems the problem is that GMs are being unattentive. If I see a HA then I look at the Strength to see the total damage. I don't just assume "oh, 10d6 HA. He does 10d6" or whatever. I don't see what's so complex about it.

Of course, the common Str cost complaint has never been a problem for us, either.

tesuji

Feb 25th, '03, 11:53 AM

Well, understand that in general i head off the problems by saying no to things i see as too problematic...

So precog and postcog are usually not allowed unless limited somehow.

VPPs (not a power but...) are in my experience the most abusive and disruptive in game terms unless highly restrictive. its not the combat impact but the strategic impact. need to move the party across the state... have magicman dial up a flying carpet. need a scout... have magic man dial up improved invisibility. need to go talk to the hostages in the shed... have magicman whip up a turn the martial artists into a dog spell. i do not allow broad power VPPs in my games anymore.

Of the powers that normally get in under the wire... telepathy. Of course, every so often if the villain is evil enough he feeds his thugs misinformation and hopes they will get telepathied... but in general it turns every ally or minion of the BGs into a serious security risk... same for te PCs too.

Vondy

Feb 25th, '03, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by Monolith
Precognition is always the hardest power for me to deal with. Trying to balance a sense of mystery in the game against someone who can look into the future and "see" who the villain is and what he is going to do can be a pain in the butt. It is pretty much the same for Postcognition where the player can "see" what happened in the area during the incident they might be investigating. I have basically just banned the power in my game to avoid all the "I would have seen that" arguments.

I've found requiring the "vague" (or unclear) limitation for this power - or No Conscious Control - works wonders.

It can still be used to add flavor (or to serve as a plot device), but doesn't kill the story.

JmOz

Feb 25th, '03, 12:03 PM

Crowd

Feb 25th, '03, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by Nucleon
Precognition, Postcognition, and that god awful rules for Multiform and Duplication at 5 pts for each additionnal form.

I end up biffing out the first two, and fix the later's price to 1 for 10 in the second form after the prime, 1 for 20 for the tird, and so on.

These are definitely things that need to be limited by the GM. I don't allow reliable, detailed Pre- or Postcog. Vague, unreliable is OK. For Multiform and Duplication I count the highest point total character as the base and add 1/5th of the point totals of any duplicates or multiforms. This gets rid of the possibility of the "million man march" of Duplicates.

Storn

Feb 25th, '03, 12:47 PM

I'm with Neil on Hand Attacks.

I've got a character, who for 1 pt, was a mystical martial artist who could routinely dish out 20d6. 14d6 occasionally for the current game would be fine. 20d6 is ridiculous.

The problem is subtle. HA often get put into Multipowers. Hey, if an EB can be put in, why not a HA. Well...IMO, Strength is already too cheap (seperate arguement)... added to the fact that this is a STrength derived power with limitations makes it cheaper, added to the fact it can legally go into a Multi... that is overwhelmingly ridiculous.

I am voluntarily reducing my characters HA because it is beyond the scope of the game to deal with. My 500+ character does NOT have a 20d6 attack (a 15d6 attack, yes, but he goes up against real heavies)

Supreme

Feb 25th, '03, 01:05 PM

Originally posted by JmOz
The most abusive character I have ever seen was named Golem, an Earth Elemental:
10" Tunneling (tunnel closes after)
50 Strength
Grabbed poor guy
moved 10" underground
Left guy
Returned
repeated
Any power can be abusive...
On Pre and Post con I require lims to make it inacurate and unreliable, I also strongly recomend limited Clairsentience as well...
I've seen characters like that. I would require the character to pay to take extra weight with them (like with Teleport), then I would allow the victim to crawl out at half their movement rate (they're only moving through loose earth, after all).

Hermit

Feb 25th, '03, 01:09 PM

I'm very blessed with good players who are also my friends and if something disruptive comes up, we normally work it out.
That said, Mind Scan can be a big pain as well ;)

BNakagawa

Feb 25th, '03, 01:24 PM

Find Weakness

Killing Attacks

Find Weakness with Killing Attacks

Cheesy detects.

Followers and vehicles and bases

damage reduction (when not limited to a specific type of damage e.g. fire)

RDU Neil

Feb 25th, '03, 01:39 PM

Also... the fact that HA are considered a form of "STR with limitations" is a real unbalanced concept.

STR is vastly undercosted. This is pretty much fact. You get 1d6 of damage, plus all the figured stats and increased movement, and resistance to entangles, and lifting/carrying... etc.

5 pts. of EB gets you 1d6 damage, at range... which, in Champions, is not nearly the advantage it should be. (Another argument.)

If HA were based on the normal structure for powers... 1d6 per 5 pts... it would be balanced. Claiming it is a form of limited STR is saying that it is a power built in a unique way, different from all other powers.

HA should be 5 pts. a piece. They should be bought as EB, can add STR to damage, no range. 5 pts.

That would be more in line with the basic underlying functionality of the Hero System. Basing them on STR with limitations is basing them on the single most broken stat in the game (and no other powers are based on a limited form of a stat) and saying, "See, it's ok!"

See... I would allow a 75 STR Brick to also have a 10d6 EB... but for less points... he can have a 10d6 HA... and it is vastly more powerful.

Like I said, HA attacks (and similarly HKAs) are potentially unbalanced, and you have to ride them harder than other powers... (and same with Martial Arts extra DCs as well... now that I think about it)

RDU Neil

Feb 25th, '03, 01:44 PM

Originally posted by BNakagawa
Find Weakness

Killing Attacks

Find Weakness with Killing Attacks

Cheesy detects.

Followers and vehicles and bases

damage reduction (when not limited to a specific type of damage e.g. fire)

I'll second "Find Weakness" as a problem.

I made the house rule that you could never more than halve the defenses so long ago, I forgot. (No rolling again and again, trying to make it 1/4 or 1/8 defenses)

With that house rule, it's never been a problem.

Gary

Feb 25th, '03, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by RDU Neil
Also... the fact that HA are considered a form of "STR with limitations" is a real unbalanced concept.

STR is vastly undercosted. This is pretty much fact. You get 1d6 of damage, plus all the figured stats and increased movement, and resistance to entangles, and lifting/carrying... etc.

5 pts. of EB gets you 1d6 damage, at range... which, in Champions, is not nearly the advantage it should be. (Another argument.)

If HA were based on the normal structure for powers... 1d6 per 5 pts... it would be balanced. Claiming it is a form of limited STR is saying that it is a power built in a unique way, different from all other powers.

HA should be 5 pts. a piece. They should be bought as EB, can add STR to damage, no range. 5 pts.

That would be more in line with the basic underlying functionality of the Hero System. Basing them on STR with limitations is basing them on the single most broken stat in the game (and no other powers are based on a limited form of a stat) and saying, "See, it's ok!"

See... I would allow a 75 STR Brick to also have a 10d6 EB... but for less points... he can have a 10d6 HA... and it is vastly more powerful.

Like I said, HA attacks (and similarly HKAs) are potentially unbalanced, and you have to ride them harder than other powers... (and same with Martial Arts extra DCs as well... now that I think about it)

HA is only a problem if you don't have any DC limits in your campaign. If there is a DC limit, it's a lot more efficient to buy str instead of HA.

5 pts for 1d6 HA is only logical if you increase the cost of str to 1.5 or 2.

RDU Neil

Feb 25th, '03, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by Gary
HA is only a problem if you don't have any DC limits in your campaign. If there is a DC limit, it's a lot more efficient to buy str instead of HA.

5 pts for 1d6 HA is only logical if you increase the cost of str to 1.5 or 2.

On a theoretical level... I totally agree.

HAs basically point out just how bah-roken the STR stat is.

On a practical level, unfortunately, changing the cost of STR vastly changes the game over all. (Yes, I'd vote for 2 pts. per 1 of STR)

This is one of those... fix it how it works best for your campaign, kind of thing.

It's just frustrating that I never had to place DC limits in 16 years of this campaign... but now I do... because HA have become prevalent. Oh well.

Acroyear

Feb 25th, '03, 02:05 PM

I'm real glad that in all my years of Hero I've never encountered the big, game breaking problem with the cost of STR that some of you folks have...even with many of our rules raping, point whores in the group, it's never been a problem.

I mean 5 points of STR gives 5 points of Str (5 pt)
1 PD (1 pt)
1 Rec (2 pts)
3 Stun (3 points)

This is 1 DC of attack, no range (3 points)
1 PD dep STR (1 pt)
1 Rec dep STR (1 pt)
3 Stun dep STR (2 pts)
1" of Leaping dep STR (1 pt)

So far we're looking at 8 points of effect and only an "imbalance" of 3 points. (In all honesty, I don't consider lifting ability to matter all that much, I suppose you can add value to the grabbing and escaping parts). Keep in mind that this calculation does not round in favor of the example and the imbalance with shrink or get back to size depending on how much STR we're talking about in terms of what the dep STR lim means and how much Stun is gotten)

As far as I can tell, STR at 1.5 per point would take care of everything, but would just be annoying to work out on a sheet and isn't enough of an issue to cause so much grief. Maybe it's just us, though.

STR can't be spread for OCV (unless that was changed in 5th and I missed it, iirc, only ranged attacks can do it) so it's lost a little effectiveness (the Sweep maneuver makes up for spreading for area, but also brings with it the DCV penalty) so you may wish to deduct from the imbalance for that (but a blaster with 12d6 worth of attack can hit a dime at 100yrds if he really needed to. Won't do much damage, but let's say it's a button that needs to be pressed... even a teeny tiny one... spreading 11 Dice will work wonders).

STR can't be bounced - almost a free indirect with "ocv penalty" side effects or to help with surprise maneuvers (arguably, one could bounce a thrown object, but it's much more likely to break in transit most of the time, I'd say).

STR requires more mobility to use (not commonly an issue, but something to consider).

STR, as a characteristic, is much more likely to be the subject of adjustment attacks than other powers (a lot of times, in my experience, drains to ranged attacks are by SFX rather than a straight "drain EB" whereas char drains, usually drugs or whatnot, focus stats in general... or even groups of stats).

I fail to see how range isn't an advantage. Must just be bad tactics. If you have range, use it, keep your distance... you don't have to fit "into" a comic panel or TV screen to fight (like in Star Trek TNG where they blast at each other from an apparent 2 ship lengths).

Anyway, just my opinion... I don't see this big imbalance with all the little things added into the mix. I'm willing to admit there might be some... but it's not so bad.

JohnTaber

Feb 25th, '03, 02:31 PM

There is one that looks to be particularly disruptive but it has yet to rear it's ugly head...

One of the PC in my new campaign is sort of a mentalist Mystique (humanoid/disguise shape changer) character where all of the mental powers are bought IPE. I can just see this character sitting in the crowd picking off all the bad guys...yeesh...not very heroic huh??? :(

Anyone have ideas for working with the player/character? Should I force him to get rig of the IPE?

PS Telling me to attack said PC with villain X won't help. I would like a good long term suggestion. ;)

Thanks!

Monolith

Feb 25th, '03, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by JohnTaber
Anyone have ideas for working with the player/character? Should I force him to get rig of the IPE?
I would not force the character to get rid of it unless he was being unreasonable with the power. I would sit down and talk to the player about what I was expecting from him and the character, and about how I was trying to enforce genre conventions when I played. Letting the player know that there are certain heroic conventions within the genre that you intend to uphold could help you out.

But if he won't listen to reason, attack him with Menton. :)

nblade

Feb 25th, '03, 02:41 PM

I'll second that IPE is something to watch out for. I had to veto a player for a similar constuct. Actually Invisibility for characters is a bit of issue, but not a major one. (And no, I don't choose to have all the villains have other Targeting sense).

Richard Logue

Feb 25th, '03, 03:23 PM

The most frustrating power in my campaign...

the ability my players have to completely circumnavigate the storyline and go off on unexpected tangents.

:D

Richard

ZootSoot

Feb 25th, '03, 04:00 PM

What irritates me most is not particular powers but power overlaps. One character with spatial awareness is fine, three with it is a problem. One character with invisibility and/or desolid fine; five characters with it, problem. This is especially dificult because efforts to restrict things to only one character are easily interpreted as favoritism . . .

TheEmerged

Feb 25th, '03, 07:22 PM

Acroyear -- this is just my experience, but the problem with the costs of STR and CON (more precisely, their excessive influence on figured attributes compared to EGO and INT) isn't something most people are going to run into unless they run a lot of campaigns where characters have Normal Characteristic Maxima by default (NCM-default campaigns). In super-heroic campaigns, it's actually somewhat in-genre for nearly every PC to have at least some super-heroic STR and CON.

There's also the "flavor" thing, like even total spellcaster types buying STR and CON up in a fantasy campaign as a result of the devaluation of buying Figured Characteristics on their own. Now, it's easy to argue that as the GM I can just disallow things out of flavor -- but go ahead and call me a Rule Geek, I think that a problem in the rules should be fixed in the rules.

-------------------------------------------------

Original Topic

I have a standard boilerplate disallowing "any power that can destroy a mystery", except for extremely limited forms. I'd consider allowing a "postcognition" that requires a massive skill roll (with Side Effects) and at least 5 Hour of Extra time, for example.

As for precognition, I have 2 boilerplate rules -- it's always merely a "potential" future that is being viewed, and it MUST be bought No Conscious Control: GM Fiat (-2). The former is a case of my religious beliefs actually being helpful in a gaming situation, I suppose :D

Two powers that you absolutely must NEVER allow a PC to have in a "villain" campaign is a general Mind Control or a Transform: Into Thrall. I let these slip one time, and regretted it. Actually, these days general Mind Control (defined: Mind Control without some limit on the commands that can be given) is disallowed under the "destory a mystery" boilerplate.

N-Ray Perception is the very edge of the "destroy a mystery" boilerplate. In the right circumstances, it eliminates certain kinds of mystery outright -- but most of the time you need to know where to look.

One set of powers that can cause problems in a super-powered campaign are what I call "nova detects": Detect Super-Powered Person (or person lacking Normal Characteristic Maxima) and Detect Active Use of Super Power. If a PC comes to you with these, don't panic -- and don't allow them to be taken Targetting and/or Tracking unless you're prepared for what that means in the campaign.

TROUBLESOME CONSTRUCTS
Some powers aren't troubling by themselves but can cause problems in combination. The following are offered as examples.

"Gravedigger"
My PC's have threatened to destroy my gaming collection if I ever use this NPC again :D The concept is as mentioned above -- Grab person, tunnel down without leaving a hole, leave them. Repeat. On paper it's no problem, in practice it's almost as whack as as ExtraDimesnional Movement: Usable as Attack. There's a reason Tunneling is so expensive...

"Mind Mole"
Start with Tunneling. Add Mind Scan or N-Ray Vision (or both). Top off with mental powers. You can hit them, but unless they're mental they can't hit you.

"Mind Mote"
Hummingbird of GRAB (CKC) fits this mold. Start with mental powers. Add shrinking. Hide. Start sniping.

"Bouncing Boy"
Named after the Legion of Super Heroes, this concept is no laughing matter. Start with a moderate "brick" with high movement powers and mobility (running, or flight without turn mode or lots of skill levels). Add Absorption vs PD, feeding into STR. Top off with Penalty Skill Levels against the multiple target penalties with Move By and Move Thru. As a result of the "blowback" damage of Move By and Move Thru, the character gets stronger every time s/he hits someone.

lemming

Feb 25th, '03, 08:12 PM

Originally posted by TheEmerged
"Mind Mole"
Start with Tunneling. Add Mind Scan or N-Ray Vision (or both). Top off with mental powers. You can hit them, but unless they're mental they can't hit you.

You forgot telescopic for the vision. One player wrote a PC like this. The GM killed it off and the prior character was brought back in.

Storn

Feb 25th, '03, 09:07 PM

I have a PC who is frightening in some ways. Shade. I play him and go "sheesh!!!, I forgot what a killer combo this character is"

He has T-port, no sound, no light, just fades in, fades out (Invis special effect). He can't go very far, just the basic 10", but he makes up for it in pure stealth.

He has a silenced MP-5 and plenty of Ranger training to go with it.

He is lethal. Opponents rarely can get a drop on him, he is always firing from behind, above, below and he can shift position in an eyeblink. He is never pinned down.

However, he is very low level, great vs. mooks, grunts, agents... not so good against even normal levels of supers.... yet it would be very easy to make him so.

KawangaKid

Feb 25th, '03, 09:11 PM

Originally posted by Acroyear
I'm real glad that in all my years of Hero I've never encountered the big, game breaking problem with the cost of STR that some of you folks have...even with many of our rules raping, point whores in the group, it's never been a problem.

Hey! I resemble that remark..

I've never encountered any problems with the folks here. Granted, most of the gamers playing HERO here are new and haven't reached the heights (or depths, depending how you look at it) of point shaving of my younger days.. But, they ARE 'storyteller' folks who really try to twist a lot of the powers and their uses, and really try to come up with wild and potentially abusive characters.

HERO has actually helped me run non-HERO games a lot, especially when characters become 'unbalanced' in other systems because I can always:
1) think of the HERO equivalent and come up with an equivalent challenge
2) think tactically & laterally. a friend was asking how to deal with the aforementioned intangible invisible "HERO", and I immediately came up with 3 ways... dependent on their definition of intangibility and invisibility.

Gary

Feb 25th, '03, 09:42 PM

Originally posted by Acroyear
I'm real glad that in all my years of Hero I've never encountered the big, game breaking problem with the cost of STR that some of you folks have...even with many of our rules raping, point whores in the group, it's never been a problem.

I mean 5 points of STR gives 5 points of Str (5 pt)
1 PD (1 pt)
1 Rec (2 pts)
3 Stun (3 points)

This is 1 DC of attack, no range (3 points)
1 PD dep STR (1 pt)
1 Rec dep STR (1 pt)
3 Stun dep STR (2 pts)
1" of Leaping dep STR (1 pt)

So far we're looking at 8 points of effect and only an "imbalance" of 3 points. (In all honesty, I don't consider lifting ability to matter all that much, I suppose you can add value to the grabbing and escaping parts). Keep in mind that this calculation does not round in favor of the example and the imbalance with shrink or get back to size depending on how much STR we're talking about in terms of what the dep STR lim means and how much Stun is gotten)

When you have characters with 75 str, all of a sudden, that's 38 pts of imbalance. We're talking about real points here.

Originally posted by Acroyear

As far as I can tell, STR at 1.5 per point would take care of everything, but would just be annoying to work out on a sheet and isn't enough of an issue to cause so much grief. Maybe it's just us, though.

1.5 per point of str seems fair to me.

Originally posted by Acroyear
STR can't be spread for OCV (unless that was changed in 5th and I missed it, iirc, only ranged attacks can do it) so it's lost a little effectiveness (the Sweep maneuver makes up for spreading for area, but also brings with it the DCV penalty) so you may wish to deduct from the imbalance for that (but a blaster with 12d6 worth of attack can hit a dime at 100yrds if he really needed to. Won't do much damage, but let's say it's a button that needs to be pressed... even a teeny tiny one... spreading 11 Dice will work wonders).

STR can't be bounced - almost a free indirect with "ocv penalty" side effects or to help with surprise maneuvers (arguably, one could bounce a thrown object, but it's much more likely to break in transit most of the time, I'd say).

STR requires more mobility to use (not commonly an issue, but something to consider).

I think these minor limitations are countered by str's ability to lift and break grabs and entangles.

Originally posted by Acroyear
STR, as a characteristic, is much more likely to be the subject of adjustment attacks than other powers (a lot of times, in my experience, drains to ranged attacks are by SFX rather than a straight "drain EB" whereas char drains, usually drugs or whatnot, focus stats in general... or even groups of stats).

High str is an advantage here. It's much worse for a 10 str character to be drained 20 pts of str than a 70 str character. High str gives you a 'buffer' against the drains.

Originally posted by Acroyear
I fail to see how range isn't an advantage. Must just be bad tactics. If you have range, use it, keep your distance... you don't have to fit "into" a comic panel or TV screen to fight (like in Star Trek TNG where they blast at each other from an apparent 2 ship lengths).

Range is an advantage, but you already factored it in when you valued the DC part of str at only 3 pts.

Crimson Arrow

Feb 25th, '03, 11:37 PM

Isn't the real problem with HA what happens when you add advantages to it? Until then, it is really just STR which can only be used for damage, but the limitation value (-1/2) is the same as for "no figured characteristics", but is actually more limiting than that limit applied to extra points of STR.

Unlike HKA, you do not pro rata STR to reflect advantages in the HA, if I understand this correctly. A 4d6 double AP HA turns into 8d6 double AP damage (if you have sufficient STR or martial arts).

Funnily enough it was the fact that this was so cheap (points, not cheese) that caused me problems, because I wanted the power to be part of an EC.

I think that any power which can ruin a mystery needs to be closely monitored. If it fits the character, fine, but I think the power needs to be limited, or the character might need to be "absent" for certain adventures - just like Dr. Fate is often absent from JSA stories.

Storn

Feb 26th, '03, 04:52 AM

Originally posted by Gary

Range is an advantage, but you already factored it in when you valued the DC part of str at only 3 pts.

Strength DOES have range. It is called "throwing." Pick up an object, a 40 or 60 or 75 STR character is going to have some decent damage with said object chucked at the target.

Plenty of things to throw on *most* battlefields.

combined with high leaping ability, The ranged EB'ers advantage is not as great as some are suggested.

tenebre

Feb 26th, '03, 04:59 AM

mind control.

just plain and simple.
,ainly because sometimes it jsut doesnt make sense for a bad guy to have tons of mental defense..

player graciously allowed his character to be altered storywise and lose the mind control ability :-)

DoctorItron

Feb 26th, '03, 05:32 AM

Gary

Feb 26th, '03, 06:16 AM

Originally posted by Storn
Strength DOES have range. It is called "throwing." Pick up an object, a 40 or 60 or 75 STR character is going to have some decent damage with said object chucked at the target.

Plenty of things to throw on *most* battlefields.

combined with high leaping ability, The ranged EB'ers advantage is not as great as some are suggested.

Str 'range' isn't as good as EB range. There are social and legal costs to throwing objects on the battlefield willy nilly, you're limited to available objects, the damage is limited to def+body of object, and said objects probably aren't balanced or aerodynamic, although some give free area effect as long as you don't worry about structural integrity. It also requires a full phase, 1/2 phase to pick up and 1/2 phase to throw.

I think 3 pts accurately reflects the damage part of str.

Keneton

Feb 26th, '03, 06:33 AM

Well I am tooting my own horn here for a sec.

I don't have these problems because of the ER. I have singled out power combos on the ER (see capabilities section) and weighed attacks DC. CV's and active points in such a way that nearly every ability listed in this thread is addressed. Ido not have these problems in my campign.

I will hoevr address a few of the issues brought up in this thread that rae very valid. . .

1. Monolith pointed out about Precognition. Well I never liked this power for PC's and in my house rules doc suggest avoiding t. I do not disallow it, but I warn that I will not allow it to spoil my game plot for the benefit of the rest of the players.

2. Strength . . As anyone knows that reads my post I love Strength. It pays for itself! Its like free money. Is it abusive, well yes and no. The ER limits this by rating Strength against the campaign ER limit. This stops much buying of Strength in multipowers as it si overly efficient, although for conceptin sake some still do this.

3. Tunneling . . Can be disruptive when combined with full move martial attacks! All levels in offense and or damage, hit and jump in ground! Stinks huh? Deal is, can be easily countered so don't sweat it too bad. Jim Oz's point that any power can be abused is well taken!!

4. IPE and mental powers. I see no problem with this. You get more milage out of a straight ego attack as the IPE attack is so small due to cost over straight EGO attack. Now this can get abusive if in a multipower so that you can switch to it when you are the guy in the crowd. Even worse though is indirect targeting sense (ala Menton) and mental powers. Its really bad when you are in the bank vault and mental rapid attacking people outside!!!!

5. Killing Attack: Lets not start on the whole stun lottery thing. Everyone hates it! HKA is controlled by the ER and or an active point limit. I also suggest an alternate stun multiple sytem. Here are two suggestions that have been exhaustively playtested and are completely acceptable in FRED.

Method 1 (Uses Locations): Use 3x on all KA prior to midifiers for increased or decreased Stun X. Use Hit location to modify under normal damage modifier after defenses are applied.

EX: Keneton has a 30 ED and is hit by Stinger with his HKA. Stinger rolls 16 Body and Hits Keneton in the Stomach. The Stomach has a Nstun x of 1.5. Keneton takes 16x3=48-30 equals 18 Stun x 1.5 = 27 Total. Since his Con is 40 he is not stunned, but boy did that smart! If Keneton was instead hit in the arm he would have taken 16x3=48-30=18 x 1/2 = 9 Stun. In the Head he would have taken 36 Stun. Get it?

Method 2 (no locations): Use 1/2 1d6-1 giving you a range of 2-4. This is suggested in FRED and does work bettr than the stun lottery. I have used this with supers for some time and it works very well without adding crazy complications.

6. Hand Attack: HA is really only abusive when combined with advantages, and thsi is mostly squashd in FRED because you need a huge Base HA if you have a STR over say 30. This is so easily controllled in The ER that its not a problem at all in my campiagn. I do find that the innacuous 1d6 HA to cahnge a punch to an attack vs ED is alittle disconcerting. I just GM fiat this or make it rate as an eb=nergy attack on the ER and squash it that way.

Please look at the ER as a tool. You will not regret it. I promise the little extra work will pay huge dividends in your campaign.

;)

starblaze

Feb 26th, '03, 06:50 AM

The worse example of a very nasty power is Drain SPD. I had a character in my game who basically had time-related powers. One that he had was a Spd drain. I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to have a powerful supervillian get drop down to status mode in just a couple of rounds.

altamaros

Feb 26th, '03, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by Supreme
I've seen characters like that. I would require the character to pay to take extra weight with them (like with Teleport), then I would allow the victim to crawl out at half their movement rate (they're only moving through loose earth, after all).

One of my players once attempted to create "the mad orbiter" based on the same concept :

10" Teleport
+ Usable as attack
+ magascale +1/2 (1" = 10 km)

JohnTaber

Feb 26th, '03, 07:48 AM

Hi Keneton: I'm sorry for bein' lame...

What is ER?

JohnathanChance

Feb 26th, '03, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by JohnTaber
There is one that looks to be particularly disruptive but it has yet to rear it's ugly head...

One of the PC in my new campaign is sort of a mentalist Mystique (humanoid/disguise shape changer) character where all of the mental powers are bought IPE. I can just see this character sitting in the crowd picking off all the bad guys...yeesh...not very heroic huh??? :(

Anyone have ideas for working with the player/character? Should I force him to get rig of the IPE?

PS Telling me to attack said PC with villain X won't help. I would like a good long term suggestion. ;)

Thanks!
Just give a villain a visible power effects mental damage shield, when said mentalist tries to zap them, the "beacon" points right to them :D

Mentor

Feb 26th, '03, 12:08 PM

Originally posted by RDU Neil
I'll second "Find Weakness" as a problem.

I made the house rule that you could never more than halve the defenses so long ago, I forgot. (No rolling again and again, trying to make it 1/4 or 1/8 defenses)

With that house rule, it's never been a problem.

I have never given the PCs enough peaceful phases to get very many Find Weakness in a row. Play it, don't ban it, I always say.

Mentor

Feb 26th, '03, 12:14 PM

Originally posted by Monolith
I would not force the character to get rid of it unless he was being unreasonable with the power. I would sit down and talk to the player about what I was expecting from him and the character, and about how I was trying to enforce genre conventions when I played. Letting the player know that there are certain heroic conventions within the genre that you intend to uphold could help you out.

But if he won't listen to reason, attack him with Menton. :)

I agree with Monolith. Concept should be clear and deep enough so both the player and GM know pretty much what any PC will do in a given situation. Our campaign is very "Four Color", so if angst ridden Teenage Mutant clawed types show up, they are generally the villain.

Mentor

Feb 26th, '03, 12:19 PM

Originally posted by ZootSoot
What irritates me most is not particular powers but power overlaps. One character with spatial awareness is fine, three with it is a problem. One character with invisibility and/or desolid fine; five characters with it, problem. This is especially dificult because efforts to restrict things to only one character are easily interpreted as favoritism . . .

Amen. It has the added difficulty in that it makes it hard for a player to feel that their character is special and stands out from the rest of the crowd.

BNakagawa

Feb 26th, '03, 03:44 PM

Originally posted by Mentor
I have never given the PCs enough peaceful phases to get very many Find Weakness in a row. Play it, don't ban it, I always say.

Tunnelling, Nray, sit 4" below target, Find Weakness until defenses are 1/4 or 1/8, Surface and drill the sucker. that's gotta hurt.

Retreat back underground and find another target.

Or use Invisibility. Or darkness with personal immunity.

Supreme

Feb 26th, '03, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by Mentor
I have never given the PCs enough peaceful phases to get very many Find Weakness in a row. Play it, don't ban it, I always say.
Not to mention that 3rd and 4th Find Weaknesses are pretty much a waste of time. You're only shaving a couple more points of DEF off.

megaplayboy

Feb 26th, '03, 04:17 PM

Hmmm...well, any power can be abusive, it depends on the player or GM, methinks...
what I find 'abusive'(i.e., fun-killing):
1. rules lawyers--waste up to an hour per session arguing trivial rule points, remind the GM to add penalties in for another player's maneuver, etc.
2. munchkins/powergamers--sneak in one or more hyper-abusive abilities, often with the statement, "well, I'll almost never use this ability, except in emergencies" Who knew an emergency would pop up in every scenario?
3. total committment psych lims--if one PC in a group has a total committment CVK, the whole group might as well have it too, because that PC will impose and enforce their point of view on everyone else
4. "Delay Monkeys/combat tweakers"--players who always delay to wait for the other guys to act, not always in conception, but just because in Hero, the advantage is often with the person who acts second(they can defend if attacked, and try to put the other guy at a DCV disadvantage if possible). All combats boil down to the PCs working their grabs, throws, entangles, flashes, etc to set up high damage attacks to end fights as quickly as possible, regardless of whether its in character or not.
5. GMs who don't respect character concepts--if my character is one of the best investigators in the city, it's frustrating to have him get stumped on nearly every adventure(eg., the character could easily figure out things the player never could, and the GM expects the player to figure things out based solely on the player's investigative ability, not the character's)
6. players who only pay attention to the combat when it's their turn
7. GMs who "lockstep" PCs into the one story path they had planned out, into the set piece scenario they have mapped out--don't be surprised when players rebel
8. players who get mad when their disads are actually USED against them("What! VIPER!?" "Uh, yeah, according to your writeup the whole organization wants you dead..." "But that's just backstory!")
9. people who can roleplay in character, but choose not to
10. feast or famine killing attacks and the stun lotto--nuff said

By the way, an energy projector can now "rapid fire" their 12d6 energy blast at the low DCV brick, and have a good shot at dropping them. If you recosted STr, you'd probably have to do likewise for martial arts--after all, you get a lot of benefit for the points in MA. But my bottom line is:

If the ability will impair your enjoyment of the game, then it may be abusive. If not, don't worry about it.

Mentor

Feb 26th, '03, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by BNakagawa
Tunnelling, Nray, sit 4" below target, Find Weakness until defenses are 1/4 or 1/8, Surface and drill the sucker. that's gotta hurt.

Retreat back underground and find another target.

Or use Invisibility. Or darkness with personal immunity.

Remember, I'm the GM. If your power is unbalancing then the surface just happens to be whatever it is your Nray doesn't see through and the rumbling of your tunnelling alerts the villains to your presence. Its gonna get rough.

ChuckB

Feb 26th, '03, 06:37 PM

Any Detect with the sense adder is usually a headache because it forces me to remember the player has it.

I usually discourage players from buying it , but if they get it anyway , I let 'em know I'm not going to "recon" anything if I forget they have it.

Players have to be very familiar with the power construction rules in order to have a VPP.

I don't allow " KS: Supervillain Weaknesses" because it is cheesy and requires me to figure out whether a weakness could/would be known.

TheEmerged

Feb 26th, '03, 07:27 PM

RE: KS Super Weaknesses. I use a "scaling" -2 penalty rule for stuff like this.

For example, let's say you have a player whose character has KS: Superhumans of the Campaign World at 17- (don't laugh, I have a PC with 40 INT) that wants to make a roll to see if he knows/can remember a particular opponent's weakness(es). Nova = superhuman for the remainder of this post.

Noticing that someone is a known nova is a straight roll (17- in this case). "Gee, I recognize him."

Being able to identify WHICH nova that is has a -2 penalty (15- roll) -- possibly counteracted if that nova has a reputation (perk or disadvantage). "Hey, that's Seeker!" This penalty wouldn't apply to someone with a more specific KS like KS: American Nova Teams

Being able to remember obvious, public information about that particular nova is another -2 penalty (13- roll). "He's an australian ninja-type, uses Comic Book Martial Arts, has a strong code of honor, and doesn't have a single point of rDef." This penalty wouldn't apply to someone with a more specific KS like KS: Champions.

Being able to remember knowledge that only someone that's studied them would probably know is yet another -2 penalty (11-). "Seeker's room at homestead is room 311." This penalty wouldn't apply to someone with a KS as specific as KS: Seeker.

To remember something that's just barely possible to know is a final -2 penalty (9-). "His 'master' actually used that 'ram your hand into jars of rice' nonsense. Talk about a wannabe..."

RE: Whether weaknesses are known. That's a little stickier, I'll grant you.

Depending on your campaign flavor, whether or not the person even *has* a weakness as such might be debatable. I enforce it for PC's and NPC's alike, so this step wouldn't apply to me.

Some things are pretty obvious, at least in comic book logic. "Hey, he's got fire powers -- wonder if he's vulnerable to cold?" Someone like Defender in an "obvious" battlesuit wouldn't invoke a penalty for someone to figure out that he probably can't fly or fire energy blasts without the suit.

Knowing a vulnerability that contradicts 'comic book logic' would probably be an additional -1 to -4 penalty, depending on the reputation of the target.

For example, Sapphire of the Champions has a vulnerability to light attacks despite being light-based herself -- CBL violation! However, she's somewhat famous in the campaign even though (surprisingly) she doesn't have the Reputation disadvantage. Utility (from CKC), with his KS: Superheroes of 14-, would probably be facing a -5 penalty to know this (although his KS: Superpowers could be complimentary and allow him to negate that) -- -2 for being a step removed from being a Superhero (because she's a particular superhero) and -3 for the CBL violation (start at -4, improve because she has a reputation).

Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Don't forget the wonders of taking Extra Time (it's one thing to remember it at the drop of a hat, another to remember it after 5 minutes) or complementary skills.

Keneton

Feb 26th, '03, 09:36 PM

Originally posted by JohnTaber
Hi Keneton: I'm sorry for bein' lame...

What is ER?

ER refers to Effectiveness Rating. See DH#3 and the spreadsheet in the Free Stuff section. It is a very detailed (albiet combersome) method of effectively evaluating the combat power of a character akin to the Slope of a golf course or the ELO of a chess player.

It was developed by a group of long time hero gamers and submitted to DH by yours truely. The ER can be used as a tool replacing arbitrary campaign limits on SPD, CV, DC, and Active points.

Hope that helps!:)

Grailknight

Feb 28th, '03, 04:39 PM

The power that I've seen that needs to be balanced is Flash. It's one of the rarest powers in comics and most people should have little to no defense(in conception). Secondary targetinging senses are also rare among my PCs. ( We play mostly mutants and mystics with real world tech so there are no powered armor or gadgeteers. Being flashed puts you at an enormous disadvantage and is almost a sure defeat in a group battle.(Brick movethrus hit now) I generally disallow Find Weakness because its too cheap.

Fedifensor

Feb 28th, '03, 11:49 PM

Some abuses in past games I've run or played in:

Mastiff - A non-standard high STR brick. 75% Physical Damage Reduction, a *6* PD, 80 Stun, Regeneration, and over 20" of running. Any standard superhero attack would do BODY, but it would take forever to drop him to negative STUN. His nastiest attack was something we called the "Gravy Train" - a full-fledged Move-Through (yes, he had several levels with Move-Through) that topped 20d6 damage. Even if he didn't get knockback, he could take full damage from the Move-Through without dropping. None of the villains could.

Kinetic - My brick character in the same game, designed before I had a full understanding of the power of Absorption. I think I had about a 20 PD/20 ED and 1/2 Damage Reduction, plus Absorption that went half to STR and half to STUN. He was quickly redesigned to remove the stun portion of the absorption after the GM and I discovered that most attacks would leave him with more stun than he started with. The GM then went on a personal vendetta against my character, making sure that every adventure had villains specificially designed to drop my character or make him useless. I was grabbed (so I couldn't get stronger from absorption), thrown out of a skyscraper, targeted by four rocket-launching turrets firing an 8d6 continuous attack (best way to drop a damage reduction character is several smaller attacks instead of one large one), etc. The rest of that campaign, I only had one straight fight where my weaknesses weren't targeted...and it was still a close shave.

A character whose name I don't remember that had a double knockback damage shield...ick!

...and finally...
Mournblade - A character with a BODY drain who was also a police officer. He used his drain in any situation where a normal officer would use a firearm - except that firearms don't kill my supervillains dead, dead, dead! Fortunately, the character didn't stay in the campaign long.

Storn

Mar 1st, '03, 07:06 AM

Originally posted by Grailknight
The power that I've seen that needs to be balanced is Flash. It's one of the rarest powers in comics and most people should have little to no defense(in conception). Secondary targetinging senses are also rare among my PCs. ( We play mostly mutants and mystics with real world tech so there are no powered armor or gadgeteers. Being flashed puts you at an enormous disadvantage and is almost a sure defeat in a group battle.(Brick movethrus hit now) I generally disallow Find Weakness because its too cheap.

I hear you. I really do. However, I think this is a campaign flavor unbalancing as opposed to a *mechanic* unbalancing. For flash defense is really cheap and 5 pts will stop 40 pts of Flash (4d6) most of the time. And most tech and battlesuit oriented characters can easily justify "polarized visor/goggles".

In RDU's game, Ego attacks, mInd control and psychic powers were somewhat unbalanced because they were rare. So enemy mentalists would come along and everyone would react with all due haste. Same with the PC mentalists, they show up and the villians would concentrate firepower on said mentalist to take them out. But as a mechanic, I think ego powers are pretty ok, defense is cheap.

Seenar

Mar 1st, '03, 07:24 AM

Originally posted by lemming
You forgot telescopic for the vision. One player wrote a PC like this. The GM killed it off and the prior character was brought back in.

I had a character who did not have tunneling but a special sense to do thsi with. He spent a lot of time hidden and strking while the rest of the team adsorbed the hits. With a 32 Ego, he never missed, and with his Mental Illusions, the other side was easy for his teammates to KO.

That being said, he has 12/11 pd/ed, 6/6 resitant. In the last adventure, when he was next to the team brick, he was KO's and took all sorts of body from the Helicopter thrown at the team brick.

Did I mention the KB that threw him off the cliff they were on?

voards

Mar 1st, '03, 08:05 AM

as a gm with more than bit of experience, the most useful tool i have at my disposal for running an interesting campaign in any game is the fact that i can dish out information in such a way to make the game progress in an interesting and entertaining manner. so, anything that can interfere with that is a potential problem.

the precog/retrocog powers are especially hard to deal with when a player can see solid info. i'd really make sure that the powers were relatively unreliable, and just give hints more so than solid data.

mental powers like telepathy make things difficult when a player can make most minions tell them everything from 2nd grade onwards. and not all villains would have mental defense to keep this from being a problem. other mental powers are also problematic in some ways, with mind control making a player have an instant army, and mind scan allowing a player fo find anyone anywhere, in just a moment. the classical 'professor x' character type really fits in better as an npc than player.

n-ray vision is pretty self-explanatory.

but one thing that most people might not realize is a problem is a part of detects. detect magic is usually not a problem, as an example. it is when discriminatory and analyze is added on that you run into issues. look at what each adder gives you, and think if you really want a player knowing that much information based off of how the detect works. magic, IMHO, is more an art than a science. therefore, i would not want a player buying discriminatory for it. instead, i'd make them use a magic skill roll to tell them what they can interpret from their detect. this could work for a variety of detects for the GM to keep a handle on these potential problems.

as for combat powers, i've been pretty good at keeping designs under control. i can see where abuses will come up and can usually stop them before they start. the trick is getting some players to realize you've got a problem with their character that is not a personal issue.

-v

dbsousa

Mar 1st, '03, 09:07 AM

I was playing Golden Eagle (Power Suit) and my buddy was playing the Avenger (Mage). The Avenger had decided to track down Dr. Destroyer by building a "Detect Evil" from his VPP. I talked him out of it for two reasons. First my character was a scientist who did not believe in magic. Second, Golden Eagle had been replaced two games earlier by his "evil counterpart" from the Yang Dimension...

I kept up the ruse for several games. I was roughing up bad guys with an abandon that should have given him pause. He only got suspicious when I told him not to dismantle Destroyer's Doomsday Satellite, and wondered aloud if it could be used to target individuals instead of cities...

Detect Evil would have put a damper on my fun...

CrosshairCollie

Mar 28th, '03, 08:53 PM

I generally haven't had a lot of problems with power constructions ... because I'm the only person in the group I play with who can make Champions characters, so it becomes a cooperative effort with me working the points and them providing input, so there we go. Of course, once the XP starts getting spent, stuff can change. But my views on a lot of the things that've been said:
Strength: I think it's balanced. I could make a big chart-thing, but I won't, I'll just mention one thing that other people have: Someone said Strength has the benefit of being used to break Grabs or Entangles. Since when can't you Blast your way out of an Entangle? And while you can't directly use Blast to get out of a Grab, barring Foci (and that's where THAT Limitation comes in), you can blast the grabber most of the time.
Hand-To-Hand Attack(HA): Just use DC limits/watch the DCs rather than just active points. Simple, no fuss, no muss.
Mental Powers: Most of the Mental Powers require HUGE amounts of dice/rolls of effect to generate truly problematic results. Having a teammate attack a friend is a massive requirement, for example.

Just about everything else, as someone said, conventions of the genre. Superheroes just don't do that. I, myself, have applied 'arbitrary' penalties to actions because they're not obeying Conventions of Superheroes, so the laws of Comic Book Physics ply against them. "It's not appropriate for the game I'm running" is a perfectly viable answer to 'why can't my character do that'.

Of course, I've also had one response that usually gets them to back off of exceptionally twinky setups.
"If you can do it, they (the bad guys) can do it."
I then create the guy with Full Life Support, Detect Superhero with N-Ray and scads of telescopic who uses Body-Doing-NND-ECV-Kills from the moon.
"Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should*."

Catacomb

Mar 29th, '03, 01:48 AM

While everything can be worked around I find that telepathy can be a real pain sometime.

Tamashii2000

Mar 30th, '03, 10:28 AM

One player gave me FITS with a simple combo... Force Wall and Energy blast. He would Spring the force wall up behind his foe (it had a pretty good PD) then use the 10d6 Eb (Double Knockback) to Blast him into the force wall.....

DrSavant

Mar 30th, '03, 02:02 PM

Hello Fellow Sage glad to meet you.

I wanted to run a Champions game once and said that powers with " STOP " and " ! " were not allowed. The players complained that their heroes were whimps.
If a player has Retrognition, Precognition, or Time Travel (Extra-dimensional movement) it is too easy for them to; solve crimes, prevent crimes etc.
Once, a time-travelling villian was trying to foul up the heroes origins, and the players complained about it. What happened is when the villain went back in time ,that by complete accident, the villian CAUSED the group members to join together (still with their powers). You guys still want to stop him from going back in time??? (Evil GM grin)
The time machine was destroyed afterwords, of course.

William Bushway

Mar 30th, '03, 10:41 PM

Absorption probably should have a magnifying glass next to it: One of my long-time characters is a kinetic-energy abrobing speedster, PD Absorption to Running. This was coupled with Invisibility (Only while moving > 10" per phase), and levels with Move-By. Not only could he hit-and-run with impunity, but if the fight went long enough he could multiple move-by and end the phase out of the villain's range.

Of course, fights never lasted more than a turn or two, so for awhile he was relegated to mook-sweeping duty. However, when our team became sanctioned by the government and we started gettingh air-dropped from choppers (so he'd have a full charge at the beginning of every combat) it was somewhat scary. So I revised his Absorption to have it feed an END reserve, which in turn fed a Multi with speedster tricks. Diversified his talents, made him much less of a one-trick pony (though the double-knockback HA in the multi was still pretty cheesy :D ).

lemming

Mar 31st, '03, 12:49 AM

On speedsters:
A GM had a Galactus clone drop down and threaten the team. My Roadrunner character multi-moveby'd him with a penetrating attack, knocking him out in one segment.

bubba smith

Oct 30th, '08, 04:10 AM

CoreBrute

Oct 30th, '08, 05:08 AM

I find healing Resurrection broken. One guy in a campaign I am in plays a demon who goes to hell each time he dies. However he also has a mind link to a powerful character who, get this, is immune to everything that requires a dice roll! I don't know why the GM let that in. But this isn't about him.

Any way back to the demon, the guy immune to everything uses his vast resources and get's him brought back each time he dies. Tell me that is not broken.

Another thing, this happened in another campaign. N-ray vision and Eidetic memory. He looks around the whole UNTIL base and absorbs all the knowledge of how it's built, and then tells it later to the guy who can understand it so he can improve his already substantial wealth. That is stealing! And broken!

To be fair that was my first game as a GM but they sure as hell didn't make it easy for me. I always smile when I see how easy some of you guys have it with your PCs.

Markdoc

Oct 30th, '08, 07:34 AM

The list of potentially abusive combat power/advantage combinations is too long to list. However, problem powers become apparent as soon as they are used in an abusive way, and are easily remedied by a quick character modification.

As a GM, I worry more about non-combat stuff that can spoil a mystery. N-Ray Vision, Precog, Postcog, Telepathy, Mind Scan.

Beat me to it. I'm not much worried about combat abilities. I'm the GM. I can always win every fight, if I want to. But "finding stuff out" powers like the ones above can really make it hard to design a challenging game.

cheers, Mark

matrix3

Oct 30th, '08, 09:11 AM

There was a munchkin build posted in a thread here somewhere where the character had a megascale 0 end mindscan that covered the earth, to find a target, and a megascale to cover the earth double IPE penetrating 0 END cumulative Ego Attack to assassinate the target. The character could be anywhere in the world, and could find and kill another person anywhere else in the world.

megaplayboy

Oct 30th, '08, 09:14 AM

Think I'd add one to my list: the player who wouldn't roleplay "in character" if the GM were actually pointing a gun at their head while offering them a winning lottery ticket and Eliza Dushku's "special tape".

bubba smith

Oct 30th, '08, 09:24 AM

he kept misenterpeting the role huh?

lapsedgamer

Oct 30th, '08, 10:25 AM

The most abusive character I have ever seen was named Golem, an Earth Elemental:

10" Tunneling (tunnel closes after)

50 Strength

Grabbed poor guy

moved 10" underground

Left guy

Returned

repeated

Any power can be abusive...

On Pre and Post con I require lims to make it inacurate and unreliable, I also strongly recomend limited Clairsentience as well...

I don't see anything wrong with Golem per se. I assume this was this a supers game. This move would kill most normals and agents making it problematic, unless you were playing an Iron Age campaign. Many supers should be able to deal with this kind of thing somehow. Blasters should get some opportunity to blast their way free. Bricks should get a chance to escape through STR. Martial Artists or speedsters should get to abort to Dodge, Escape or the like.

The damage is going to be limited to suffocation, which takes a long time to kill you, and squeezing damage from STR and maybe the weight of rock on top of you (limited). As a GM, I would not allow this to become an instant kill scenario for other supers. If the player complained, I would say, "What you really wanted to buy was a continuous, uncontrolled NND that does Body." In the end, what you described would be a good, very annoying, attack combo with the potential to kill in the long term, not a game stopper.

Kenn

Oct 30th, '08, 10:38 AM

megaplayboy

Oct 30th, '08, 10:53 AM

he kept misenterpeting the role huh?

well, either that, or i"d get a guy who'd talk in gamespeak or who'd just be oblivious to the whole concept of RP and play the game like a wargamer.

megaplayboy

Oct 30th, '08, 10:54 AM

Eliza Dushku made a special tape????

Hey, what else do you think the gun is for? To protect the Precious.:ugly:

steamteck

Oct 31st, '08, 04:23 AM

I've got pretty good players so its usually not a problem. You just have to remember no murder mysterys for the telepaths etc. I've got a player almost exactly like Golem (but stronger and with n-ray vision for earth ,stone and he isn't abusive about it because it would be unheroic.

One that sometimes gives problems is a character my wife converted from a homebrew system who has "cosmic awareness" which is basically a VPP of pretty much all psychic senses plus eidetic memory, absolute range sense and teleportation powers. Allow the targeting clairvoyance and teleport trick. Its a pain in the neck sometimes but I allowed because she's been playing that family with that powerset since college in the 80s and we both have a fondness for them.

I've actually found on the other hand HERO's concrete clairsentience rules make that power less of a pain in the neck than most other games. IN facyt, I'd say that was a general trend.

DocSamson

Oct 31st, '08, 04:43 AM

We have a house rule that you must attend a situation to take part in it. In other words, we have banned several combinations such as:

Mind Scan with Other Mental Powers
Desolidification with Affects Physical World
Extra-Dimensional Movement with Transdimensional
Tunneling with Indirect
Increased Maximum Range with No Range Modifier

So these types of issues are no longer a problem for us. My most recent frustration as a GM has been Invisibility. My last game had one group incarnation where every player had Invisibility. I hated it until we had some character changes.

Me - "Phase 12, what do you guys do"
Player 1 - "I turn Invisible and wait to see what the others do."
Player 2 - "I turn Invisible and wait to see what the others do."
Player 3 - "I turn Invisible and wait to see what the others do."
Player 4 - "I turn Invisible and wait to see what the others do."
Player 5 - "I turn Invisible and wait to see what the others do."
Me - "You all suck."

Balabanto

Oct 31st, '08, 07:51 AM

DocSamson

Oct 31st, '08, 08:28 AM

That is not a way to win friends and influence people. Wow. I would have smacked them all upside the head for that.

Can they actually SEE each other? The thing that people don't realize about invisibility is that this is not the Bugblatter Beast of Traal power. Just because they are invisible doesn't mean that they can see other invisible people.
They could not see each other and teamwork definatley suffered. Though it was easily manageable for me as GM (using typical anti-invisibility tactics), it was just annoying. I don't think it was intentional on their part. It seemed to be that everyone had some element of "super-stealthy" in their concept during that incarnation of the group. Luckily it was during my "Exiles" style run so we had a few character changes in the next arc. We still make jokes like "Ok, everyone turn invisible and just stand there until the villains get bored and wander away...".

Mr. R

Nov 1st, '08, 12:53 AM

They could not see each other and teamwork definatley suffered. Though it was easily manageable for me as GM (using typical anti-invisibility tactics), it was just annoying. I don't think it was intentional on their part. It seemed to be that everyone had some element of "super-stealthy" in their concept during that incarnation of the group. Luckily it was during my "Exiles" style run so we had a few character changes in the next arc. We still make jokes like "Ok, everyone turn invisible and just stand there until the villains get bored and wander away...".

Repped.

Vulcan

Nov 1st, '08, 07:34 AM

Korvar

Nov 2nd, '08, 06:07 AM

What powers frustrate our campaign? The GM regualrly using attack powers well in excess of the AP caps imposed on the players (70 AP for players, many NPC's exceed 80 AP and 100 isn't all that uncommon).

The same GM restricting DEF beyond 20 to Bricks.

(I swear if his games weren't so darn interesting I'd go find another GM...)

Well... Hm. It depends. Generally, NPCs are less effective than PCs, even at the same power level, as the GM has to divide attention between them all, while each player has only one character to think about. So a little bit of a power-up is reasonable.

And you want the fights to be a challenge - that way it feels better when you win :)

On the other hand, if the PCs are getting hammered every session... that's not a lot of fun. And part of the point of playing supers is occasionally being The Best There Is at something...

lapsedgamer

Nov 2nd, '08, 11:09 AM

What powers frustrate our campaign? The GM regualrly using attack powers well in excess of the AP caps imposed on the players (70 AP for players, many NPC's exceed 80 AP and 100 isn't all that uncommon).

The same GM restricting DEF beyond 20 to Bricks.

(I swear if his games weren't so darn interesting I'd go find another GM...)

In comics, the villains are often more powerful than the heroes. One of the downsides of superhero RPGs is that players never want to play the standard comics tropes of losing the first encounter, or being captured and having to escape.

I blame some of it on players who would really rather be playing D&D. It's my pet peeve, so I am a little passionate about it. Every game is not about killing things and looting the corpses, so that you can become more powerful and kill bigger things to loot their corpses.

Hyper-Man

Nov 2nd, '08, 05:59 PM

AP caps are a tool that applies to PC's to make a GM's job easier.

GM created and controlled 'boss' NPC's by definition have access to a larger palette of power and influence. Example: In fantasy fiction a dragon is almost always more powerful than the protagonist of the story.

Angelalex242

Nov 10th, '08, 04:34 PM

lapsedgamer

Nov 10th, '08, 11:19 PM

Personally, I think some power caps are silly.

Restricting high def to bricks, for example...

Famously, Magneto's forcefield could take a nuke. He certainly has bricklike defense, despite being a 'blaster/energy projector'. His only disadvantage is that it's a forcefield, and forcefields can be dropped.

The closest already made equivalent is Gravitaar, who has similar, but not quite as much defense as Magneto would have.

True enough, but no GM would ever let you run Magneto in a game. He is, as is Gravitar, a big villain made to take on groups of 350 point heroes.

Actually, I just this moment thought of a one shot game that would be fun. One player plays Mechanon, another plays Gravitar, and another plays the Empress of a Billion Dimensions. You get the idea. Everyone has the same goal: world domination. It would be part war game, and part role playing. When are those Ultimate Base Kingdom rules coming out?

Vulcan

Nov 11th, '08, 06:53 AM

In comics, the villains are often more powerful than the heroes. One of the downsides of superhero RPGs is that players never want to play the standard comics tropes of losing the first encounter, or being captured and having to escape.

I blame some of it on players who would really rather be playing D&D. It's my pet peeve, so I am a little passionate about it. Every game is not about killing things and looting the corpses, so that you can become more powerful and kill bigger things to loot their corpses.

And if it were just the master villians, I wouldn't be complaining. But evey Tom, Dick, and Harry villian has an 80+ AP attack. To be hit is to be stunned, even if you are a brick!

Angelalex242

Nov 11th, '08, 05:19 PM

Heh. The world Domination game sounds fun. Throw in Dr. D and Takofanes, and you've got a party.

Or for an equally weird idea, take Mechanon/Dr. D/Istha Vaan/Gravitaar/Takofanes, then make them a party and set them up against something like Doomsday of DC fame. Or Tyrannon the Conquerer.

starblaze

Nov 12th, '08, 05:44 PM

I have to say the VPPs are the most abusive thing in Hero System. I had a gadget character in my silver age game who had a gadget power pool with the 1/2 phase action adder. It was just way overpowered, particularly since she really had no underlying scientific principle behind how her 'science' worked. Her powers and how she used made no sense whatsoever and on top of that she was gradually using her power builds to dominate the game.

I eventually just gave up and ended the campaign because I was so sick of it. That and the fact that even though I was trying to run a silver age/four color game she wanted to kill an unconscious mad scientist with really no superpowers, he created monsters to do his work, and then wanted to hide the body. The other players talked her out of it.

BTW, she was one the two people I talked about in the thread.
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58477

Korvar

Nov 13th, '08, 03:55 AM

Hugh Neilson

Nov 13th, '08, 05:48 AM

Yeah, VPPs can be bad if not kept under control. I remember playing a character with just a huge VPP for a power (they were new at the time, and I wanted to see how they worked); the loophole I found myself exploiting is the number of powers (desolid, N-ray vision, etc.) that have to be defined "not against X". So theoretically, you can decide on a case-by-case basis what your "X" is, and specifically choose it to not apply in your current situation.

I'm sure there's a way around that, but I'm not sure what it would be, off the top of my head.

To me, the solution is to define the VPP up front. What can it do? What can't it do? Assess a limitation on the control cost based on how restrictive it is. Just putting "VPP" on the character, at least in my games, doesn't mean "he can do anything". Like every other mechanic in Hero, you need to add its SFX and fine tune it from there.

Many VPP's are restricted to a single SFX. The "magic bullet" for abilities like desolid and N-Ray might reasonably be set based on those SFX, and not allowed to float.

Tamashii2000

Nov 13th, '08, 07:44 AM

Yeah, VPPs can be bad if not kept under control. I remember playing a character with just a huge VPP for a power (they were new at the time, and I wanted to see how they worked); the loophole I found myself exploiting is the number of powers (desolid, N-ray vision, etc.) that have to be defined "not against X". So theoretically, you can decide on a case-by-case basis what your "X" is, and specifically choose it to not apply in your current situation.

I'm sure there's a way around that, but I'm not sure what it would be, off the top of my head.

VPP's can be a pain.. a major one. I never allow the 'not against x' or those sort of limitations unless they where part of the VPP to start with. Way to much abuse. One player pushed it..so i told him that such a limitation is no limitation and thus worth.... +0

He quit shortly there after.

Nagisawa Takumi

Nov 13th, '08, 08:02 AM

Now admittedly, I've run all of three total games/sessions with HERO, but Dimensional Travel is just begging for trouble as a GM nightmare.

Angelalex242

Nov 13th, '08, 03:26 PM

Well, the not vs. X are sort of traditional.

The biggest not vs. X being Green Lantern's 'not vs. Yellow'

Querysphinx

Nov 13th, '08, 05:29 PM

Well, the not vs. X are sort of traditional.

The biggest not vs. X being Green Lantern's 'not vs. Yellow'

Yeah, but that effects the whole VPP, not individual powers within it.

What they're talking about is the cosmic pool where the player arbitrarily tries to get away with putting N-ray vision "not vs. rock (-1)" in his VPP when he's trying to see through a metal wall and then switches it to "not vs. metal (-1) when he's trying to look through a rock wall."

This is the "what can I get away with?" game. A firm hand and a well defined VPP should prevent it from being too much of a hassle.

Basil

Nov 13th, '08, 06:03 PM

VPP's can be a pain.. a major one. I never allow the 'not against x' or those sort of limitations unless they where part of the VPP to start with. Way to much abuse. One player pushed it..so i told him that such a limitation is no limitation and thus worth.... +0

He quit shortly there after.

Er, no, that's not what Korvar is talking about (IIUC).

A character with Desolidification is effected by Mental attacks, Sense-Affecting powers, Presence attacks, attacks that work through the characters breathing, and any attacks with Affects Desolidified {all of the above come with certain provisos I've skipped}

As well, all Desolid characters must define a special effect of attacks that affect the character normally. For instance, a vampire might be able to turn into mist, bought as Desolid; the player might say that in mist form the vampire can be effected by wind-based powers &/or silver-based powers.

As Korvar pointed out, someone with a VPP might at one point have Desolid, affected by cold powers, then change it to Desolid, affect by wood-based powers. There's a very similar problem with N-ray vision.

EDIT: oops, Querysphinx already covered the basics.

RedneckJedi

Nov 13th, '08, 07:34 PM

I have never been a GM but our GM didn't like some of the power advantages. We had one player who had AID set up as a sort of super-fast healing power. He literally heal as a fast as he was injured, can't remember how he did it but I do know that he used Always On, 0 END, and Persistent and I think he used a limitation of 'only up to starting stats' or something like that.

Korvar

Nov 14th, '08, 12:24 AM

What they're talking about is the cosmic pool where the player arbitrarily tries to get away with putting N-ray vision "not vs. rock (-1)" in his VPP when he's trying to see through a metal wall and then switches it to "not vs. metal (-1) when he's trying to look through a rock wall."

Exactly. And, to an extent, you can even make it logical, depending on what senses you're claiming to use. Sonic, X-ray, cosmic ray, "etheric vibrations", "gravity waves", whatever. If you have an actual Cosmic Pool with the ability to change it in half a phase, logically you should be able to try various different senses to examine a particular thing. But that can break the game...

Querysphinx

Nov 14th, '08, 04:14 AM

Exactly. And, to an extent, you can even make it logical, depending on what senses you're claiming to use. Sonic, X-ray, cosmic ray, "etheric vibrations", "gravity waves", whatever. If you have an actual Cosmic Pool with the ability to change it in half a phase, logically you should be able to try various different senses to examine a particular thing. But that can break the game...

It's one of those things that's only logical if you proceed from an unworkable assumption. I.e. if your character concept is too broad. E.g "My character can control all types of energy." or "My character can change reality in any way he can imagine."

After the GM picks himself up off the floor laughing. He says, "Ahem. In a word. No."

Angelalex242

Nov 14th, '08, 06:21 AM

Well, Green Lantern gets pretty darn close to altering reality in any way he can imagine, short of that color yellow thing.

Korvar

Nov 15th, '08, 01:34 AM

Well, Green Lantern gets pretty darn close to altering reality in any way he can imagine, short of that color yellow thing.

Agreed. I think any mad cosmic Green Lantern style character would have to have a universal "not versus X" thing.

The problem with the GM "just saying no" is that there are comic-book characters who have exactly those powers, and obviously people are going to want to make versions of those characters.

Angelalex242

Nov 15th, '08, 07:41 AM

Exactly. I'm sure someone, somewhere, made a Red Lantern whose powers don't work against blue objects.

BNakagawa

Nov 15th, '08, 12:55 PM

So if Color Kid got his hands on a power ring of any color/weakness, he'd be unstoppable.

Vulcan

Nov 16th, '08, 09:15 AM

ParagonAlpha

Nov 16th, '08, 11:39 AM

I had often wondered why Green Lantern (any of them) didn't just take Sinestro's ring (on any of the multiple times they beat him) and use it on those rare occassions where they had to deal with something yellow...:confused:

Because yellow = fear and everyone knows Hal Jordan is fearless.

The ring wouldn't work for him. Duh. :rolleyes:

Querysphinx

Nov 16th, '08, 11:53 AM

Because yellow = fear and everyone knows Hal Jordan is fearless.

The ring wouldn't work for him. Duh. :rolleyes:

The two qualifications for being a green lanterns. You must be fearless, and you must be stuuuuuuupid.

Basil

Nov 16th, '08, 12:39 PM

The two qualifications for being a green lanterns. You must be fearless, and you must be stuuuuuuupid.

You must also be heroic!

Or did you already say that? :think:

AnotherSkip

Nov 18th, '08, 08:14 AM

One of my players once attempted to create "the mad orbiter" based on the same concept :

10" Teleport
+ Usable as attack
+ magascale +1/2 (1" = 10 km)

yeah the "cable clone" I got one in my campaign, but he has 10" teleport, and the without error rules. So he falls on his targets, I have a few plans though. now i have to institute the falling takes time rules.

DocSamson

Nov 18th, '08, 10:03 AM

I had often wondered why Green Lantern (any of them) didn't just take Sinestro's ring (on any of the multiple times they beat him) and use it on those rare occassions where they had to deal with something yellow...:confused:
Guy Gardner had it for awhile (starting in the Sinestro Quest and ending in Guy gardners series). It was pretty cool too.

Egyptoid

Nov 18th, '08, 10:27 AM

the Armor Piercing &or Penetrating versus Hardening eshcaladation

Hyper-Man

Nov 18th, '08, 10:30 AM

Guy Gardner had it for awhile (starting in the Sinestro Quest and ending in Guy gardners series). It was pretty cool too.

Hal Jordan also did in the Alex Ross 12 issue Justice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_%28DC_Comics%29) series.

(http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0503/08/index.htm)Ross (http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0503/08/index.htm) said the plot of Justice is basically "the ultimate Superfriends payoff."

nexus

Nov 19th, '08, 03:33 AM

This is kind of a spin-off from my other post, "Would U allow this?", but I would like to pose this question to all you GM's out there...

What powers do your PC's have in your campaign that you always end up arguing over or find very unbalancing in your campaigns? And, what have you done to compromise on the powers? Give specific breakdowns of the powers please and the arguements regarding them.

Mental Powers are a PIA for me. They often short circuit any investigative or mysteries in the campaign unless they're very convoluted or hand out Mental Defense like candy and render a number of skills effectively redundant (many Interaction skills). Mechanically, I find them dull and narratively somewhat difficult to describe. I'm also not fond of how Hero System handles some aspects of mental powers but I under why they are the way they are.

Invisibility can be very tricky to deal with and tends to extremes. Either the character with it rolls over opposition, goes ignored or there's constantly someone or some thing involved in the scenario that can by pass their power which gets frustrating for the player. There's also arguments lie "If my clothes are invisible, doesn't my HKA sword/claws get IPE for free?"

Precognition. I always require some limitations on that power and make it explicit that the what the character sees is either a "possible" future or that visions might not tell 100 percent of the story but are a "snapshot" of a particular moment subject to interpretation. Retrocognition has some of the same issues as Mental Powers regarding mysteries.

input.jack

Nov 20th, '08, 10:05 AM

I usually do the same thing with Pregog. I tell the Players "Precog tells you the MOST LIKELY future, based on events happening as they would from the point you look forward from, without outside (your) interferance".

I actually gamed with a GM who ran Precog as "absolutely the unavoidable future now that you have looked at it". So by looking into the future, you made it so. We would -try- to work around outcomes we didnt like, and not everything was -exactly- what it had seemed when we looked, but it -always- played out to be what we had seen with precog. I have NO idea how he did it. He loved Greek mythology, and was a master at maneuvering PCs into place when he needed them to be.

He was also kind of a railroading GM, so while it was impressive in how he handled Precog, his games werent always fun...

D. Guss Tibus

Nov 20th, '08, 03:19 PM

I gotta agree. Precog is the biggest spoiler power. Some the mental powers are PITAville too.

Querysphinx

Nov 20th, '08, 03:56 PM

BNakagawa

Nov 20th, '08, 09:51 PM

I don't mind mental powers. Telepathy would seem to be the most disruptive to game play, but I like to remind myself that people's brains are not like cameras, we don't record everything we see in crisp technicolor or store it all in long term memory. Nor are brain operating systems (B.O.S.) necessarily compatible so information may get garbled in translation. The telepath may see brain images and not know what to make of them.

It is by no means an open and shut case about the nature or limits of human memory.

As evidenced by savants, the ability of the human brain to retain amazing amounts of information gathered in a short amount of time exists.

Most of us don't seem to have the knack for getting at it. How telepathy operates, whether it is simply the asking of the person to search their memories for a bit of information, or bypassing them and going after the memories themselves, isn't even addressed in the game mechanic.

So, you have an undefined property of human cognition being altered by a less than comprehensively defined power. There's a great deal of hand waving involved any way you look at it.

nexus

Nov 21st, '08, 12:21 AM

While making a call on the nature of memory and how Telepathy interacts with can be a GM's call "gimping" the ability to maintain a mystery seems a little more heavy handed than declaring Precognition shows a "possible" future. Vague and and clear Precog gets a limitation after all. It seems like Telepathy that was subject to perils of human memory and maybe the eye witness memory issue would be worth one too. Also special effects might effect the situation. Telepathy might represent a few things.

Edit: I'd lean more towards Telepathy going directly after memories themselves. It doesn't even suffer a language or cultural barrier by default after all. Mind Control (Tell me what remember about X) would most likely get subjective answers. Make Telepathy too inaccurate and you risk it becoming more or less like Interactive skills. I could see in a more "realistic" campaign requiring a slightly higher effect or some kind of skill roll to get the unvarnished "truth" on a memory scan as a compromise between two extremes.

Hugh Neilson

Nov 21st, '08, 05:59 AM

I agree that I think the GM should simply disallow abilities he considers unbalanced in his game rather than let the player spend the points, then house rule the power's utility into oblivion.

D. Guss Tibus

Nov 21st, '08, 07:45 PM

Querysphinx

Nov 21st, '08, 08:45 PM

I agree that I think the GM should simply disallow abilities he considers unbalanced in his game rather than let the player spend the points, then house rule the power's utility into oblivion.

I would rather tell the player. "Yes, you can do this, but this is how it's going to work..." Maybe I'll give them a limit on the telepathy. For example, I might request and require a "muddy the waters" limitation that makes it progressively harder to repeatedly use telepathy on a target in a short period of time; you have to wait for the waters to still again. Working on the theory that you can't observe something without changing it.

I should point out that, as a GM, I have no compunction against tweaking, shaving, bending, twisting, or outright ignoring rules that don't do what I want them to do, but I tell my players about it up front. The gaming contract is between the players and the GM, not between the humans and the rulebook.

"It's not so much rules as guidelines."

lemming

Nov 22nd, '08, 08:05 AM

the Armor Piercing &or Penetrating versus Hardening eshcaladation

We had that, and finally just had a campaign rule that two levels of hardened would be proof against any piercing combo. Which got everyone to not have anything past that. And we only had a few bricks that wound up with double hardened.

Hugh Neilson

Nov 22nd, '08, 01:41 PM

I would rather tell the player. "Yes, you can do this, but this is how it's going to work..." Maybe I'll give them a limit on the telepathy.

I should point out that, as a GM, I have no compunction against tweaking, shaving, bending, twisting, or outright ignoring rules that don't do what I want them to do, but I tell my players about it up front. The gaming contract is between the players and the GM, not between the humans and the rulebook.

Emphasis mine. I agree with your approach.

To me, you are telling the player "I won't allow the power as written because it will break the game. Here is what I will allow." The player has the choice of taking that approach, or going a different direction. He has not been allowed (or mislead) to spend his points on an ability he believes will perform as advertised, then been told "nope - it doesn't work - too bad you wasted those points".

nexus

Nov 22nd, '08, 01:51 PM

I would rather tell the player. "Yes, you can do this, but this is how it's going to work..." Maybe I'll give them a limit on the telepathy. For example, I might request and require a "muddy the waters" limitation that makes it progressively harder to repeatedly use telepathy on a target in a short period of time; you have to wait for the waters to still again. Working on the theory that you can't observe something without changing it.

I should point out that, as a GM, I have no compunction against tweaking, shaving, bending, twisting, or outright ignoring rules that don't do what I want them to do, but I tell my players about it up front. The gaming contract is between the players and the GM, not between the humans and the rulebook.

"It's not so much rules as guidelines."

Hopefully I didn't give the impression I thought you were being unfair to your players. I meant altering the way Telepathy functions to that degree wouldn't be something I'd feel comfortable doing without offering a Limitation. I assumed you'd be upfront about any changes from the start regardless of if you gave them a numerical limitation or not.

Ed Coll

Nov 22nd, '08, 04:01 PM

The gaming contract is between the players and the GM, not between the humans and the rulebook.

Very well put! :thumbup:

JackValhalla

Jan 21st, '09, 05:02 PM

Hands-down most disruptive power to me: Extradimensional travel. One of the first games I ran, I overlooked one entry in a character's multipower, and the next thing I know, this campaign is sailing into the wild blue yonder. The first adventure started, I introduced a challenge for the players, they started thinking about how to solve it, and then this guy pipes up and says, "Screw this. I'm going back to ancient Troy to go score with this Helen chick. Anyone wanna come with me?" And they did.
From that point on, it was all I could do to try to keep up with them. I'd try to devise some kind of scenario for the timeline they were in, but if they got bored, disappointed, frustrated, or worried, they'd just find a different point in history to violate.
Finally I had to give them a time-travelling antagonist, a kind of "time-cop" who had to fix their messes, and wanted to stop them before they could do any more damage. And they blipped away from him.
Now, older and wiser, I know how to deal with this situation, and how to re-engage the players in a cohesive plotline, even if it's not the one I originally intended. At the time, it drove me up a wall. To this day, that power sends up great big flags and warning bells for me.