Powers Issues -- A-E

[Balabanto]

I'm actually going to go out on a limb here.

Damage Reduction....

Should be completely reworked. The elegance of the original design of the game began to break down once you introduced damage reduction.Unlike other things in the game, the way I think this should work is that Damage Reduction should be broken into 10 percent increments, with 70 percent being the maximum. This is the resistant version. The nonresistant version costs 10 points per unit. Resistant costs 15

What the heck am I talking about? You say. How the *BLEEP?* can he even suggest such a crazy thing?

Well, hold on a minute and let the old geezer who runs 3-5 champions games per week per year talk for a second.

1) Math is easier. Everyone knows how to divide by ten. It's quick, it's simple, and it doesn't make your eyes pop out. Multiply by 1 to 7 to get your percentage and you're done.

2) Low powered games eat the dirt on Damage Reduction. If you DON'T allow it, concepts get hosed, but if you DO, your game balance will be thrown off because of agents vs. villains logic, which I'll explain in a moment.

3) High powered games especially eat the dirt on Damage Reduction. In a high powered game, everyone and their mother has damage reduction, because the more dice the enemies put out, the more exponentially powerful damage reduction becomes. Now it becomes harder to afford big damage reduction in low powered games, and in higher powered games, it still costs meatloads of points.

Now the percentage that you get is directly related to the type of game you're playing in. I personally wouldn't allow damage reduction above 70 percent, and a more conservative person I tried hashing this out with suggested that it stop at 60.

What is agents vs. villains logic? What I discovered over years of playtesting the damage reduction rules was this:

1) When fighting big flunkies (Supervillains) or Master Villains, the character with damage reduction is superior, because there's a limited number of foes throwing big attacks at him. We'll assume that the villain throws 14d6 (Very high, but not unreasonable.)

Character 1 has 16/16 and 1/2 Damage reduction, Character 2 has 30 points of Defense.

49-16=33/2=16

Character 2 has 30 points of Defense. He takes 19.

Now, if your character has 50 stun (I chose this because this is normal human maximum) after three shots, Character 2 is unconscious, and Character 1 is still on his feet with 2 stun left.

BUT...

2) When fighting agents, a damage reduction based character goes down in a hurry.

Let's look at this situation again.

Character 1 gets hit by 4 8d6 EBs, which average 28 stun. He takes 24.

Character 2 takes 0.

So...who's the Brick?

My argument is that this power needs to be better scaled. Much better scaled. If you want to grandstand against the master villain, buy damage reduction. That's the flaw in the design of this power. And the mightier the game you play in, the more powerful under the current rules Damage Reduction becomes.

[Netzilla]

Q: Should Absorption be removed and simply folded into Aid as a special form of that Power?

I agree that making it an Aid modifier would be overly complicated.

Q: Should the Self Only (-1/2) Limitation for Aid be increased in value?

I think that one of the problems with the current Advantage/Limitation system is that some modifiers are deemed to be the same value in all situations. I think more text needs to be devoted to explaining that in some situations different Modifiers can be worth more or less than indicated. One example of this is the way Reduced END changes based upon weather or not the attack is Autofire. Minor variations like this or changing Self Only to be worth more on an Aid is less of an inconsistency than it is an acknowledgment that some things vary from the norm.

Q: Should Armor and Force Field be combined into one Power?

Almost certainly. Pick one and build the other off of it. You can keep them as separate listings in the Powers list, but mathematically they should work out to the same cost. Heck, you can argue that they're actually modifications on just normal PD/ED. Make Resistant a +3/4 modifier. Then you end up with:

Force Field: PD/ED, Resistant (+3/4), Costs END (-1/2), Visible (-1/4) = 1 RP each.
Armor: PD/ED, Resistant (+3/4) = 1.75 RP each; or 4 for 7.

This creates a greater degree of internal consistency in the pricing of defenses.

Q: Should Damage Reduction be extended to allow for 100% Damage Reduction (a.k.a. “Invulnerability”), at least as to one chosen special effect or Power type?

I think that this would at least need to be limited to only a specific Special Effect (Fire, Electricity, Demon Powers). Even at that, I don't think it should be truly absolute. I think that this would require the creation of a new attack Advantage, Irresistible, that negates Damage Reduction (of course the God of Fire can burn a fire elemental; he outranks it in the cosmic hierarchy). You then can put the Hardened Advantage on DR to counter levels of Irresistible, just like you currently have the AP/Pen vs Hardened mechanic now. Or you could argue that Dispel vs DR and DR, Difficult to Dispel already does this.

The main advantage I see to this is that, sometimes, in order to buy enough Armor, only vs Fire, to be immune to the campaign limit of Fire, you end up with an Active Cost so high that it either exceeds the campaign limit or it can't be put into a Power Framework and thus ends up costing more points than its worth. If the absolute limit on attacks is 30 DC (some master villains in the Champs universe), then you'd need 105 ED Armor just to be able to soak the average Energy Blast damage roll at that level. That's 70 Active Points. If you rate Only vs Fire at -2, you have a 23 RP cost. If you want to avoid the max that could be rolled, you have to account for the 10d6 RKA fire with its max 300 stun: 300 ED Armor is 300 AP and 100 RC). Compare that to Desolid, Only vs Fire and you can see why no one wants to buy that much Armor.

Q: Should Damage Resistance be removed as a Power in favor of a Resistant (+1/2) Advantage for abilities that provide Normal Defense (such as regular PD and ED)?

If you make it only +1/2, then you make it cheaper to buy PD/ED Resistant than it is to buy Force Field.

10 PD, Resistant (+1/2) (15 AP), Costs END (-1/2), Visible (-1/4) = 9 RC
Force Field, 10 PD = 10 AP/RC
Armor, 10 PD (15 AP), Costs END (-1/2), Visible (-1/4) = 9 RC

10 RC vs 9 RC isn't a huge difference, but as defense levels increase, the gap gets larger. I think it would just be more elegant if the costs worked out equal, even if they aren't officially written up as variations on the same power.

Q: Should any functionality be removed from Desolidification, or the Power changed in any significant way?

I like the variant in The Ultimate Metamorph, myself. I'd like to see that variant moved into the core rules as an option at least.

[Vondy]

I feel clairvoyance is overpriced in the current version - prohibitively so. I also wonder if it should actually be a power, or whether it should be included under the options/adders/advantages for extant sense groups. Retrocognition and Precognition could also be handled this way. Senses can already be transdimensional, so why not remote or temporally displaced? It falls in with the spirit of streamlining, and makes a certain amount of internal sense (to me at least).

[Opal]

I feel clairvoyance is overpriced in the current version - prohibitively so. I also wonder if it should actually be a power, or whether it should be included under the options/adders/advantages for extant sense groups.

You mean like "why can't I just buy Indirect on my sight?" It's not a crazy idea, but, while Clair may be too expensive, that alternative would likely be too cheap.

[Vondy]

You mean like "why can't I just buy Indirect on my sight?" It's not a crazy idea, but, while Clair may be too expensive, that alternative would likely be too cheap.

How so?

At present senses have tons of adders that can be tacked on. Correct princing is a simple matter of setting the correct price. At present N-Ray for the sight group, which is effectively indirect, is 10 points. Basic clairvoyance (which is remote) could be 10 points with increases in range costing 2-3 points per range increase. Retrocognition and precognition can be separate adders with their own cost. And if 10 points isn't high enough, raise it.

I'm also curious what "too cheap" means. In the current edition the power is effectively out of the heroic price range unless its loaded with limitations, and it can be "ugly" for superheroic characters, too. Just how much should it cost? Have you tried to build a character with a sensor suite or superman-esque senses? Its gawdawful expensive already.

I'm asking an honest question. It was never this expensive in previous versions, and the price jump wasn't so much based on how much it was worth as the fact that their was a desire to make it more granular and sense by sense.

[Chris Goodwin]

E for Enhanced Senses --

Steve, how about a way for swapping between PER rolls and Requires a Skill Roll? For instance, build a sense that is based on a Skill Roll, that you would make the Skill Roll instead of the PER Roll.

[Vondy]

E for Enhanced Senses --

Steve, how about a way for swapping between PER rolls and Requires a Skill Roll? For instance, build a sense that is based on a Skill Roll, that you would make the Skill Roll instead of the PER Roll.

This isn't in there? I know you can use characteristic rolls instead of skill rolls. You can't use perception rolls?

[Opal]

I'm also curious what "too cheap" means.

Clairsentience has a number of possible aplications. One is gathering information, something which can de-rail plots and can be controlled by GM fiat or charging more for it. Another is targetting mental powers. The cost/difficulties of getting a Clair 'lock' on someone for that purpose needs to be comparable to Mind Scanning someone to be reasonable. Of course, you could just make Clair non-targetting, and clear up the latter.

[Chris Goodwin]

This isn't in there? I know you can use characteristic rolls instead of skill rolls. You can't use perception rolls?

Oh, I'm talking going the other way around. For senses, using a Skill Roll instead of a Perception Roll to sense something.

You can use a Characteristic Roll (or, IIRC, a PER Roll) with RSR to activate a Power, including an Enhanced Sense.... but once you have it activated, you still use a PER Roll to sense something.

[Susano]

How about allowing 100% Damage Reduction versus a set effect (Fire, Blades, Cold, Bullets, and so on)? This would allow one to build certain character concepts without kludging together Armor and DR.

[Vondy]

How about allowing 100% Damage Reduction versus a set effect (Fire, Blades, Cold, Bullets, and so on)? This would allow one to build certain character concepts without kludging together Armor and DR.

I know the general notion is to collapse rather than expand powers, but why not take the cost of the current desolid version of invulnerability and turn it into its own power: invulnerability vs. special effect with some modification to cost based on the breadth or narrowness of the effect. The reason I suggest this is that DR currently works versus PD/ED/MD, which are mechanics rather than effects. Adding a level that works versus effects rather than mechanics seems a bit out of place. On the other hand, it may be that DR should be reworked to work against effects with the cost based on how broad those effects are (with the broadest effect equating to the extant categories). I don't know. It just seems odd to have one level of a power work differently than the other levels to me.

[The Shadow]

Am I alone in thinking that Dispel is (in most applications) grossly overpriced for what it does?

I was making a mage character in a low-level superheroic game a few months back... and I was just stunned how many AP it took to make a simple D&D-style Dispel Magic spell.

Yeah, I spend an awful lot of points to... turn your magic powers off. When you can turn them back on your next turn. Mmmhmmm. Admittedly, it's rather nice if one's opponent happens to be flying magically at the time or whatever, but sheesh.

EDIT: Thinking on this a bit more, perhaps there should be a "power countering" option available by default. Any power could be used to counter another appropriate power. Dispel would simply pick up from there, letting you Dispel wider groupings.

[Chris Goodwin]

E is for Ego Attack

Should we keep it? When I started playing, I found myself a bit surprised at its existence when you had Energy Blast and Based On ECV.

You can build a Power that, mechanically, acts exactly as Ego Attack, using Energy Blast and existing Modifiers. If Ego Attack had never existed in the system, this would be the "official" way to build a mental attack or blast of some kind.

So, stay or go? My vote is, it's one for the "Where Did It Go?" section.

[megaplayboy]

E is for Ego Attack

Should we keep it? When I started playing, I found myself a bit surprised at its existence when you had Energy Blast and Based On ECV.

You can build a Power that, mechanically, acts exactly as Ego Attack, using Energy Blast and existing Modifiers. If Ego Attack had never existed in the system, this would be the "official" way to build a mental attack or blast of some kind.

So, stay or go? My vote is, it's one for the "Where Did It Go?" section.

I tend to agree. Why not put it directly under "energy blast", with a specific advantage cited for it? You could also have a variety of mind blasts, with one being the standard BOECV, works against mental defense variety; another being visible and normally targeted, but still against mental defense; an area effect version, etc.
The "no range, visible, normally targeted" psychic sledgehammer would be fun...

[megaplayboy]

what about a "pre-emptive" version of Damage Reduction, that worked before applying other defenses? It would have to be much more expensive than Regular DR, of course, but it might be a good way to simulate nigh-invulnerability (particularly if appropriate limitations were applied).
25% reduction should be about half again as expensive
50% should be about twice as expensive
75% should be about 2.5 to 4 times as expensive

the desol based invulnerability (Desol, only to protect(-1), 0 END, Persistent) costs about 40 points. 40 points is a nice chunk of change, so that's probably a reasonable cost point for invulnerability to one sfx.