Advantages Issues

[Steve Long]

Hi folx! Here are some thoughts about Advantages that have occurred to me over the years, along with my brief thoughts on them. I’m posting them here to stimulate discussion, but not to limit or restrict it. These aren’t necessarily all the issues about Advantages that could be considered, nor the only thoughts about them. Feel free to post anything here that you think is relevant and reasonably constructive; you don’t have to limit yourself to what I’ve posted.

Regardless of whatever opinion I post on an idea, I’m always willing to be convinced otherwise if you think you can do it. The fact that I’m posting an opinion doesn’t necessarily mean my mind’s made up on an issue; it just indicates my current thinking on the subject.

Periodically I may post other questions and thoughts that occur to me.

This section also includes questions about Power Modifiers in general.


Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be expressed with decimals rather than standard fractions?

Steve’s Thoughts: What I mean by this is that instead of +½, we’d write it +.5. The main benefit to doing this is that it would increase granularity since we’d no longer be limited to ¼, ½, ¾, 1, and so on. You could have a +.15 Advantage, a -.60 Limitation, and so on. That would allow for much more precise pigeonholing than the current four-step system.

While granularity is desireable, there are also some drawbacks. First, it takes more spaces on the page to write +.5 than +½, or -.75 than -¾. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but trust me — when it comes to wanting to make character sheets compact and easy to use, and over the course of hundreds of thousands of lines of text in dozens of books, it’s a concern that can’t be overlooked.

Second, is this level of granularity really desireable? One, while current HERO System users could master the difference with almost no effort, I think it could be more confusing to newcomers. Two, I shudder to think over the arguments that could result regarding the value of an Advantage (“It should be a +.35.” “No, you idiot, that’s clearly a +.41!”). Three, even if this change takes place, I still think most Power Modifiers will end up as .25, .50, .75, and 1 partly out of habit, partly because those values are appropriate, and partly because we like to think in terms of such numbers. Fourth, I don’t think there are really *that* many situations where wedging Power Modifier values into the current four-step system causes unbalance or other problems.


Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be applied to Powers in a different way?

Steve’s Thoughts: This may depend partly on the answer to the question in the “General Issues” thread about whether we should abandon the concept of Active Points and Real Points. One possibility would be to make them adders and subtractors rather than multipliers and dividers, since the concepts of multiplying and dividing by a fraction seem to scare off some newcomers despite the facts that (a) it’s pretty basic math, and (b) calculators are really cheap. Another would be to let Advantages and Limitations “cancel each other out” before application, so that a +¾ Advantage and a -½ Limitation would result in a (¾ - ½ =) +¼ Advantage. A third would be to have Advantages affect *effectiveness* rather than points, so that a power with a -¼ Limitation is somehow 20% less effective, not 20% less costly (though this raises the question of why to take one if it doesn’t “save” anything).

Overall, though, my current thinking is that none of these changes are worth it (even if all their implications can be worked out). I’m always open to new ideas, but I think the current Power Modifier rules structure works fine.


Q: Should we allow characters to choose whether to use an Advantage on a power whenever they use the power, rather than making Advantage use mandatory?

Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think we should, but as long as we’re considering everything I suppose it can’t hurt to throw this one out there.


Q: Should any new Advantages be added?

Steve’s Thoughts: I can’t see a strong need for any, but there are certainly some that could be considered. For example, the Time Duration Power Modifier (from my DH #39 column) might be worth adding, if not in the core book then in a 6E FH genre book. The same could be said for Damage Over Time (DH #47).


Q: Should some of the optional new Areas of Effect in the Character Creation Handbook be incorporated into the core rules?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think so. I think AoE (Trail) and the Cage modifier are definitely worthwhile, and probably Sight Range and Voice Range as well. They’re all things that tend to be fairly common and that can be done with the current system, but it will save gamers time and effort to give them an easy, unified way to do them.


Q: Should Damage Shield be removed as a stand-alone Advantage and just become a form of Trigger?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. That’s really all it is, and the expansions and clarifications for Trigger make it possible to create one that functions in basically the same way. However, there would probably need to be a “Damage Shield” additional value adder for Trigger to reflect the fact that a Damage Shield *automatically* hits its target, whereas an ordinary Trigger does not. OTOH, under this scheme the No Range Limitation would be applied to the power, easing the cost burden some.


Q: Should MegaScale be tweaked for ease of use?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. MegaScale works just fine, but the differences between it and personal scale create some confusion on the part of some gamers and some logical disconnects. I think it will work better if the initial level is more expensive (probably +1), but you can use the power at any scale from personal up to the purchased maximum.


Q: Should Time Delay be eliminated?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. You can do the same thing with Trigger.


Q: Should Usable On Others be changed/revised?

Steve’s Thoughts: I can’t say for sure right now, but it sort of seems to me like UOO has gotten way more complicated than it needs to be. Maybe that’s unavoidable; giving a power to another person (either voluntarily or as an attack) is a sort of complicated thing. But at the very least I’d like to create some options so the rules set forth easy ways to do typical Fantasy things like make everyone in an adventuring party invisible, or for a flying character to carry some friends along but not let them fly under their own power.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Everything in a game system interacts with everything else. So I'm wondering how things like Area of Effect and Megascale will work if the hex grid is replaced.

Mind you, there are some who consider Megascale a severely broken mechanic anyway and would not mind seeing it disappear.

[vincemcd]

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be applied to Powers in a different way?

Splitting up the comments Steve has made that I'd like to add my own $0.02 to...

One possibility would be to make them adders and subtractors rather than multipliers and dividers....

I may be an old Fuzion fan, but this is one part of Fuzion that I definitely didn't like - everything was a flat adder or subtractor. While I think that some advantages and limitations probably work better as flat additions or subtractions, I think doing this across the board won't work well.

For example: Penetrating, for instance, might work well as a flat adder per amount of "minimum damage" that gets through defense. Armor Piercing, on the other hand, benefits higher-damage attacks much more than lower-damage attacks, and should be more costly for bigger attacks.

Another would be to let Advantages and Limitations “cancel each other out” before application, so that a +¾ Advantage and a -½ Limitation would result in a (¾ - ½ =) +¼ Advantage.

This will likely depend greatly on any changes to the "Real Cost vs. Active Cost" implementation. Overall, the math is easier while still meaningful. Even if I'm simply going to regularly plug formulas into my computer, anything that'd help play on the fly while not hindering the capabilities of the system is a "win."

Q: Should we allow characters to choose whether to use an Advantage on a power whenever they use the power, rather than making Advantage use mandatory?

Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think we should, but as long as we’re considering everything I suppose it can’t hurt to throw this one out there.

This is already possible, if one sets up all of the advantages on their powers with Naked Advantages. It's a character sheet nightmare to do so, and probably should set off a GM's warning-bells if someone did. Musing aloud, maybe this means that Naked Advantages (or at least some of them) need a little additional cost over "regular" advantages.

I don't see the harm in having this as an option. Maybe just a flat +0 option with GM permission, or maybe make it cost something (probably something as low as a +1 adder).

[James Gillen]

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be expressed with decimals rather than standard fractions?

No, it's easier this way.

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be applied to Powers in a different way?

Ehh, no.

Q: Should we allow characters to choose whether to use an Advantage on a power whenever they use the power, rather than making Advantage use mandatory?

Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think we should, but as long as we’re considering everything I suppose it can’t hurt to throw this one out there.

It's worth considering at least.

Q: Should any new Advantages be added?

Not really necessary, but if any really good ones come up, sure.

Q: Should Damage Shield be removed as a stand-alone Advantage and just become a form of Trigger?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. That’s really all it is, and the expansions and clarifications for Trigger make it possible to create one that functions in basically the same way. However, there would probably need to be a “Damage Shield” additional value adder for Trigger to reflect the fact that a Damage Shield *automatically* hits its target, whereas an ordinary Trigger does not. OTOH, under this scheme the No Range Limitation would be applied to the power, easing the cost burden some.

Not specifically the same question, but on the subject, forcing us to take Continuous on top of Damage Shield was one of the biggest bee-itches I and several other people had with 5th Edition. If it HAS to be Continuous, it should simply be the straight +1 value, with "Damage Shield" defined as a 0-level adjustment like the variants for Area Effect One Hex or the like.

Q: Should MegaScale be tweaked for ease of use?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. MegaScale works just fine, but the differences between it and personal scale create some confusion on the part of some gamers and some logical disconnects. I think it will work better if the initial level is more expensive (probably +1), but you can use the power at any scale from personal up to the purchased maximum.

I seem to be one of the few people who likes MegaScale.

JG

[Enforcer84]

Ractive query, little thought.

so what would qualify as a .15 advantage? and does there really need to be a .01 level of Granularity?

[Enforcer84]

Personally, I'd kind of like the Semi-Armor Piercing/Armor piercing Advantages combined? I kind of liked the Piercing Points Advantage from long ago, perhaps bought as an Adder? but of course I could see the abuse potential there.

[L. Marcus]

For a little more granularity, why not use Ad and Disad steps of a fifth? Or a multiple of .2, if that's easier to read.

[mabalmer]

Point by point....

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be expressed with decimals rather than standard fractions?

I could see an argument for and against. For, in that it would allow us to define Advantages and Limitations that really do have a more accurate representation of how powerful they are. Against, in that it's more mathy. And I don't like math. So I'd say no. I could get behind the notion of adding a couple of steps, though - say, 1/3, and 2/3. It would give us two more steps; I think that would be helpful. That's a level of granularity that I think would work well.

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be applied to Powers in a different way?

I can't see why, quite honestly. Do I think some advantages are more expensive than they should be/fail to offer enough benefit for the cost? Sure, but that doesn't mean we should do the calculations any different.

Q: Should we allow characters to choose whether to use an Advantage on a power whenever they use the power, rather than making Advantage use mandatory?

While I can see the reason for this, I can also see a reason not to. This is the whole reason we have Multipowers.

Q: Should any new Advantages be added?

I can't think of any off the top of my head. I so rarely create custom Advantages that it's almost a moot point.

Q: Should some of the optional new Areas of Effect in the Character Creation Handbook be incorporated into the core rules?

Absolutely, but with one big point: add some granularity to the actual range of these advantages! The old "one hex per 5 Active" works for many things, and you can buy this up, but what if you DON'T want that? I think reworking the AoE Advantages costs is definitely in order, especially when it comes to range of effect. For strong powers, the AoE is frequently far too large (much as the range limit on powers is so huge as to not be an issue in many cases). Case in point: a 90-AP AoE (line) power has an effective range of 18". While this is nice for a +1 advantage, 18" is the width of a full battlemap. Can we have a version that's a smaller Advantage with less range on it so we don't have to burn up so many Active points when we -don't- want all that range and never did in the first place?

Example: An earth manipulator wants to buy a power that is defined as a whip-force that travels along the ground, knocking things out of the way as it travels. Its kinetic force doesn't last very long, but it is quite powerful while it travels. He buys it as:

EB 9d6; AoE (18" line; +1), No Range (-1/2), Limited AoE (9"; -1/4). 90 AP, 51 RP.

He's paying full price for an effect he doesn't -fully- want, because while he takes a -1/4 Limitation on the power to limit the AoE of the power by half, that doesn't really help him when it comes to getting what he really wants, which is a few extra dice of damage.

See what I'm getting at?

Q: Should Damage Shield be removed as a stand-alone Advantage and just become a form of Trigger?

As stated before, that's kinda what it is, so yes.

Q: Should MegaScale be tweaked for ease of use?

I'm not sure how else you'd tweak it. It seems pretty straightforward to me. IMO, before you tweak Megascale, I would see how the general measurement changes play out. If you change from hexes to grid squares, and go to 1" = 1m, then that makes Megascale even simpler, as you just multiply distances by whatever factor of ten you need. I kinda like MS as it is.

Q: Should Time Delay be eliminated?

Bag it, I never use it.

Q: Should Usable On Others be changed/revised?

Don't really have a good answer on this one. Would I like it so that it was easier to use in terms of a "party-effect" power? Yeah, I would, but again, short of changing costs I'm not quite sure how to do that.

[Sean Waters]

I'd like to see advantages and limitaitons overhauled so that an advantage adds something to a power and a limtiaiton takes something away. Two examples at present of advvantages reducing utuility and limtiations increasing it are with damage shield and focus, but there are others.

[L. Marcus]

You feel Focus increases utility in Powers? How so?

[Sean Waters]

You feel Focus increases utility in Powers? How so?

I have a gun focus. I can give it to you to use, even though I have not bought UBO for it, unless I define it as a 'personal only' focus.

[Sean Waters]

Naked advantages:

I can buy an 8d6 EB AP for 60 points in a game capped at 60 AP and I have to use the AP (I'd probably want to anyway unless I was desperate to save END against a low-def target)

OR I can buy 8d6 EB and a 20 point naked advantage, and not have to use the advantage, and so not spend the END.

Finally I could (without violating the AP cap) buy a 12d6 EB and a 30 point naked advantage for AP.

I think we need to either make NAs cost more or increase the utility of 'normal' advantages by making their use optional to acheive some sort of balance here.

Actually another point occurs: there is no cost or other penalty if you define your NA as applying to more than one power. Perhaps there should be?

[Susano]

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be expressed with decimals rather than standard fractions?

Steve’s Thoughts: What I mean by this is that instead of +½, we’d write it +.5. The main benefit to doing this is that it would increase granularity since we’d no longer be limited to ¼, ½, ¾, 1, and so on. You could have a +.15 Advantage, a -.60 Limitation, and so on. That would allow for much more precise pigeonholing than the current four-step system.

While granularity is desireable, there are also some drawbacks. First, it takes more spaces on the page to write +.5 than +½, or -.75 than -¾. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but trust me — when it comes to wanting to make character sheets compact and easy to use, and over the course of hundreds of thousands of lines of text in dozens of books, it’s a concern that can’t be overlooked.

Second, is this level of granularity really desireable? One, while current HERO System users could master the difference with almost no effort, I think it could be more confusing to newcomers. Two, I shudder to think over the arguments that could result regarding the value of an Advantage (“It should be a +.35.” “No, you idiot, that’s clearly a +.41!”). Three, even if this change takes place, I still think most Power Modifiers will end up as .25, .50, .75, and 1 partly out of habit, partly because those values are appropriate, and partly because we like to think in terms of such numbers. Fourth, I don’t think there are really *that* many situations where wedging Power Modifier values into the current four-step system causes unbalance or other problems.

Please, no. One thing that drives me nuts about GURPS is the percentages, whcih are all over the map. The 4 (really) 8-step system is nice and elegent. It goes from -0 to -2 at -1/4 increments and has worked for years that way (so, actually, it's a 9-step system).

Q: Should Advantages and Limitations be applied to Powers in a different way?

Steve’s Thoughts: This may depend partly on the answer to the question in the “General Issues” thread about whether we should abandon the concept of Active Points and Real Points. One possibility would be to make them adders and subtractors rather than multipliers and dividers, since the concepts of multiplying and dividing by a fraction seem to scare off some newcomers despite the facts that (a) it’s pretty basic math, and (b) calculators are really cheap. Another would be to let Advantages and Limitations “cancel each other out” before application, so that a +¾ Advantage and a -½ Limitation would result in a (¾ - ½ =) +¼ Advantage. A third would be to have Advantages affect *effectiveness* rather than points, so that a power with a -¼ Limitation is somehow 20% less effective, not 20% less costly (though this raises the question of why to take one if it doesn’t “save” anything).

Overall, though, my current thinking is that none of these changes are worth it (even if all their implications can be worked out). I’m always open to new ideas, but I think the current Power Modifier rules structure works fine.

Personally, I don't seen the need for a change like this (although I will admit, 25 years ago I thought they did cancel each other out...).

Q: Should we allow characters to choose whether to use an Advantage on a power whenever they use the power, rather than making Advantage use mandatory?

Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think we should, but as long as we’re considering everything I suppose it can’t hurt to throw this one out there.

My answer? Buy a Multipower with enough slots to acheive the results you want.

Q: Should any new Advantages be added?

Steve’s Thoughts: I can’t see a strong need for any, but there are certainly some that could be considered. For example, the Time Duration Power Modifier (from my DH #39 column) might be worth adding, if not in the core book then in a 6E FH genre book. The same could be said for Damage Over Time (DH #47).

I'd rather see some Advnatages expanded or better defined than start adding news ones, unless the new ones incorporate an effect that must otherwise be built with multiple Advantages and the like. OTOH, I know your DH columns had a lot of good ideas and material in there.

Q: Should some of the optional new Areas of Effect in the Character Creation Handbook be incorporated into the core rules?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think so. I think AoE (Trail) and the Cage modifier are definitely worthwhile, and probably Sight Range and Voice Range as well. They’re all things that tend to be fairly common and that can be done with the current system, but it will save gamers time and effort to give them an easy, unified way to do them.

Yes, please. I don't own the CCH, but I do have The UEP, and liked the new AOE effects. I do, however, disagree with your implimentation of what happens when you miss with an AOE or Explosion (as stated in the UEP) and really don't want to see that made a 6th Ed. ruling. It makes no sense from both a realism and game mechanics standpoint.

Q: Should Damage Shield be removed as a stand-alone Advantage and just become a form of Trigger?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. That’s really all it is, and the expansions and clarifications for Trigger make it possible to create one that functions in basically the same way. However, there would probably need to be a “Damage Shield” additional value adder for Trigger to reflect the fact that a Damage Shield *automatically* hits its target, whereas an ordinary Trigger does not. OTOH, under this scheme the No Range Limitation would be applied to the power, easing the cost burden some.

Our consensus last night on this exact subject (Damage Shield) was to make the Advantage "all-in-one," and thus remove the need to buy other Advantages to simulate it. Our idea was to make a Damage Shield +3/4, and an Offensive one +1. No need for Continious or other Advantages as it is now all "built in" to DS Advantage.

Q: Should MegaScale be tweaked for ease of use?

Steve’s Thoughts: I think it should. MegaScale works just fine, but the differences between it and personal scale create some confusion on the part of some gamers and some logical disconnects. I think it will work better if the initial level is more expensive (probably +1), but you can use the power at any scale from personal up to the purchased maximum.

Ah, good. Right now there's a disconnect between a character's max range on a movement power and where Megascale stats. This will eliminate that.

Q: Should Usable On Others be changed/revised?

Steve’s Thoughts: I can’t say for sure right now, but it sort of seems to me like UOO has gotten way more complicated than it needs to be. Maybe that’s unavoidable; giving a power to another person (either voluntarily or as an attack) is a sort of complicated thing. But at the very least I’d like to create some options so the rules set forth easy ways to do typical Fantasy things like make everyone in an adventuring party invisible, or for a flying character to carry some friends along but not let them fly under their own power.

Simpler is always better.

[nexus]

Megascale should be better defined and expanded to include optional extras like acceleration time for Mega movement. The advantage tends (for me) to include some logical disconnects that detract from its use.

Time Delay might be rarely used but it seems important for creating things like Time Bombs. I suppose it could be lumped into Trigger (a set period of time passes).

What are the new AE modifiers in the Character Creation book?

[Susano]

Megascale should be better defined and expanded to include optional extras like acceleration time for Mega movement. The advantage tends (for me) to include some logical disconnects that detract from its use.

Time Delay might be rarely used but it seems important for creating things like Time Bombs. I suppose it could be lumped into Trigger (a set period of time passes).

What are the new AE modifiers in the Character Creation book?

Sounds like the same ones from The Ultimate Energy Projector.