Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

[dmjalund]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

can I delay a segment and use "Haymakering Appearance"?

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

can I delay a segment and use "Haymakering Appearance"?

 

Sure... it adds +4d6 to your Presence Attack, but you take a -5 to your DCV for grandstanding.

 

 

But can you megascale it?

[Lucius]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Haymakering Appearance, Megascale: (Total: 27 Active Cost, 12 Real Cost) +4/+4d6 Striking Appearance (vs. all characters), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), MegaScale (1m = 1 km; +1) (27 Active Points); Extra Time (Extra Segment, Character May Take No Other Actions, -3/4), Perceivable (By everyone within about 5 km; -1/4), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) (Real Cost: 12)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary saw this coming

[Martin2]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

So how is the above questions different from striking appearence? Do you not define what the striking appearence is when bought' date=' such as beauty or fear? So it doesn't work all the time either, only in a predefined situation. So to answer your question, if the COM is based on beauty, thenit only applies to those situations and if its based on cool personality, then it only applies to those situations.[/quote']

 

Very little in definition.

 

But in RAW COM in 5th had no game effect (I am told as I do not have 5th) beyond possibly just apposed COM to see who looked the best at that specific time (which for some supers may get boosted every experience spend so that a certain super is better looking then another ). Other game effects seem to be house rules extrapolated from rules comments.

 

In RAW Striking appearance has a definate game effect which is defined when bought so you have it defined with a specific game effect on various skills depending on who it effects.

 

So Striking appearance in terms of game effect appears to be better than COM for game effects in RAW and not house rules etc.

[Greywind]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

So you're going by hearsay?

 

If COM had no effect in a game, I'd say that's due to a lack on the GM's part.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

He said by RAW - and by RAW it had no definite effect, it had "May provide's" and that's it. Good GM, Poor GM, Gygax GM, or Stellar GM - By RAW COM did basically nothing, or rather it may have some vague, undefined, affect on other rolls....

 

The missed opportunity was to take the Core Stat and really put some meat behind it. You could have added a whole page of things to do with it, or more. But as pointed out upthread - all it really ever added to was PRE Based abilities. At best COM was a limited form of PRE: "Only where physical appearance can affect outcome (-1)".

 

The debate really raged around what all the things people did with Comliness, many of which were fantastically cool, but every single one was a house rule of some kind, and a Core Stat shouldn't stick around based on what other people decided to change about the rules. Either the rules change to reflect including house rules that are common (and by all means, a lot of the uses of COM were common across many many groups - but just as commonly not used at all as well).

 

The new Rule (Striking Appearance) basically does what COM really hinted at doing all along - added to PRE based abilities based on when physical appearance might (by GM and Player agreement) come into play. All it really did was turned a vague sentence in the book into an actual mechanical affect.

 

Was it a cool Characteristic? undoubtably. But it was basically flavor text from the onset.

[Markdoc]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

He said by RAW - and by RAW it had no definite effect, it had "May provide's" and that's it. Good GM, Poor GM, Gygax GM, or Stellar GM - By RAW COM did basically nothing, or rather it may have some vague, undefined, affect on other rolls....

 

The missed opportunity was to take the Core Stat and really put some meat behind it. You could have added a whole page of things to do with it, or more. But as pointed out upthread - all it really ever added to was PRE Based abilities. At best COM was a limited form of PRE: "Only where physical appearance can affect outcome (-1)".

 

Actually, I've seen COM used in-game, to affect Gambling and PER rolls (to be noticed, not for the PC to perceive) as well, though those are both INT-based. Not a house rule, so much as application of the RAW.

 

debate really raged around what all the things people did with Comliness, many of which were fantastically cool, but every single one was a house rule of some kind, and a Core Stat shouldn't stick around based on what other people decided to change about the rules. Either the rules change to reflect including house rules that are common (and by all means, a lot of the uses of COM were common across many many groups - but just as commonly not used at all as well).

 

The new Rule (Striking Appearance) basically does what COM really hinted at doing all along - added to PRE based abilities based on when physical appearance might (by GM and Player agreement) come into play. All it really did was turned a vague sentence in the book into an actual mechanical affect.

 

Was it a cool Characteristic? undoubtably. But it was basically flavor text from the onset.

 

Where do people get this rubbish from? Doesn't anybody actually check the rulebook before making statements like this? COM gets a half column of descriptive text on its effects - about the same or slightly more than any other characteristic (apart from STR, which has about as much text dedicated to it as all other primary stat.s combined). Yes, the text includes the phrase "are sometimes used" - but this is directly in line with the text on all of the characteristics (again, apart from STR), where it is suggested that rolls against various stats "should be used" "might be appropriate" "can be used" etc. The major difference from the other stat.s is not the vagueness of its effect (the description is no more vague than that for EGO, or INT), but the fact that it doesn't have any skills or secondaries based directly on it.

 

cheers, Mark

[ghost-angel]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

I did read the rules. It gets exactly a whole paragraph of vaguely worded text. Don't tell my I don't read the rules.

 

This may effect some skills or Presence Attacks.

 

COM Rolls are somtimes used as complimentary Rolls to some Interaction Skills in situations where a character's appearance (good or bad) might influence what happens.

 

That's it. That is THE ENTIRE description of what Comliness does. And that's a longer second sentence than the 4E rule book.

 

It has no skill rolls of it's own, like INT, PRE, and DEX; it has no effect on other mechanics like EGO, STR, BODY and CON do. It had no other influence beyond vagaries - which is exactly what I said.

 

More space is given over to what happens when your COM is a Negative Score than what happens if you buy it up.

 

By contrast, INT gives you exact and specific situations on making an INT Roll, on top of influencing Perception and having its own class of Skills to go with it.

 

INT - Use INT Rolls when a character tries to employ knowledge not specifically represented by a skill, or when he attempts to remember something or figure something out (particularly when the player is stuck on a problem and his substantially smarter character might be able to figure it out).

 

CON - You should use a CON Roll whenever a character has to perform a feat of physical hardiness or endurance. This might include resisting poisons or diseases, accomplishing physically arduous tasks, and so forth.

 

Can you see the difference in language? definitive uses versus vague uses. Notice in CON it provides several hard examples, where none exist in COM.

 

Yeah, sure, about the same space. But one has "this does this" and one has "this might, if decided, do something with that." WHICH IS WHAT I SAID.

 

I'm sorry you have trouble with that, really, but I misled nothing, did not misread the book, did not misinterpret the book, and did not misrepresent the book.

 

my statment is directly in line with the text. Don't tell my I've come up with rubbish. Did YOU read the rulebook?

[Vulcan]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

And so it begins...

[megaplayboy]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

[Greywind]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

And so it begins...

Shut up, Kosh

[ghost-angel]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Look, I'm not interested in what people Did with Comliness, its validity or its uselessness.

 

When you read the Great Debate, just sit down and read it - what's really being argued is what people actually did with the Characteristic. Which is fantastic. That so many people looked at one sentence and ran with it in so many directions, with such interesting results is a testament to the hobby. People really did A LOT with that Characteristic. That's awesome, really.

 

But when you sit down and just read it, it's as non-specific as you can get. It's a vague, weasel worded sentence full of nothing. Not even a single example idea. Which is untrue of all the other "what can you do with this" sentences in that section of the book.

 

And that's my point. It would have been great if that were simply made more concrete, even if kept short. Am I unhappy it's gone - well, a little. It was neat. Am I unhappy with the actual use that replaced it? Not at all. I like it a lot as a matter of fact.

 

All I am saying - and yes I've read the rules Mardoc - is that the sentence in the book was vague, unclear, and not very useful. It didn't help.

 

And the debate raged around the idea that a whole bunch of very imaginative people (and a whole bunch of very unimaginative people, to be honest about it) basically yelled for a couple hundred posts over the words "sometimes" and "might".

[Greywind]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Obviously though those words opened a floodgate of ideas. When the "rules" for a game are actually only "guidelines", is that so terrible?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Obviously though those words opened a floodgate of ideas. When the "rules" for a game are actually only "guidelines"' date=' is that so terrible?[/quote']

 

Not even a little bit. Like I said - testament to gamers everywhere that the floodgate of ideas opened like that. But for every gamer whose mind just went "My God, It's Full Of Stars" there was another gamer who looked at that and went "The Goggles! They Do Nothing!"

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

The problem here is basically that some folks keep insisting their house rules are just as valid as the rules as written, even for people who have never seen their house rules. Sorry people, but the rest of the HERO games community doesn't have a direct line on your personal campaign guidelines, and no matter how good your house rules are, not one letter has changed in the Rules As Written.

 

Or equally infuriating, they use their house rules to fix a perceived problem with RAW (lack of rules for COM in the RAW, in this case) and then say there was never a problem. But if there was never a problem, they wouldn't have needed any house rules! It's a self-contradictory, self-defeating argument, but I doubt that explaining this will help. It's kinda like fighting the Black Knight....

[Greywind]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

'tis but a scratch

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

I think there was a group that liked the idea of having a measure of character attractiveness right there on the character sheet and favoured giving COM some mechanical rules rather than eliminating it. That could certainly have worked, whether those mechanics were modifiers to interaction skills and/or PRE attacks, whether they were fixed and determinable, subject to GM discretion and/or subject to random rolls. After all, Steve came up with appearance-based mechanics for Striking Appearance, so I have no doubt he could have come up with mechanics for COM just as readily.

 

Ultimately, however, I have to agree with his assessment that COM wasn't really a characteristic in that it had no independent function. Even the mechanics suggested for COM have been almost universally modifers to PRE-based abilities rather than abilities all their own. A suite of abilities unique to COM seems like a lot to ask - and I can't think of a way to make that happen without stripping abilities away from another characteristic. So, while I liked having that measure of "attractiveness", ultimately I agree with the reasoning that it was not a fit with the other characteristics.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

I can think of a few abilities unique to COM that could've been added without taking anything away from other Characteristics or Skills, but for the most part, it's not that kind of game....

 

Although MegaPlayboy covered that subject pretty thoroughly over in the Other Genres forum.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

The problem here is basically that some folks keep insisting their house rules are just as valid as the rules as written' date=' even for people who [i']have never seen their house rules[/i]. Sorry people, but the rest of the HERO games community doesn't have a direct line on your personal campaign guidelines, and no matter how good your house rules are, not one letter has changed in the Rules As Written.

 

Or equally infuriating, they use their house rules to fix a perceived problem with RAW (lack of rules for COM in the RAW, in this case) and then say there was never a problem. But if there was never a problem, they wouldn't have needed any house rules! It's a self-contradictory, self-defeating argument, but I doubt that explaining this will help. It's kinda like fighting the Black Knight....

 

Exactly, and the first part is what I've been saying. I can't Rep you right now for that though.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

I can think of a few abilities unique to COM that could've been added without taking anything away from other Characteristics or Skills' date=' but for the most part, [i']it's not that kind of game....[/i]

 

Although MegaPlayboy covered that subject pretty thoroughly over in the Other Genres forum.

 

 

Hey, someone's gotta do it...

[Markdoc]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Don't tell my I've come up with rubbish. Did YOU read the rulebook?

 

Yeah I did. I see multiple stat.s all with about the same amount of descriptive text, all (apart from STR) with 2-3 sentences suggesting possible uses. I really, truly honestly, don't see a significant difference, and it baffles me that people continue to spout the line that there are no rules for COM. The section on CHA contains exactly as many rules on COM as it does on DEX, and that's simple fact. In the CHA description section of RAW COM got exactly as much attention as anything else - STR excepted. The difference, as I have noted is that there are no skills or secondaries based on COM - not that there are no rules for it.

 

So yeah, it bugs the hell out of me when people say there are no rules on COM - when in fact the same amount of text and exactly the same amount of rules guidance is given as for other stat.s, STR excluded. I always assume people who state that simply haven't read the rules. The rules are pretty basic: you can allow a COM roll when appropriate. Of course that's the same rule as for CON and DEX (or PRE or INT): you can allow a CON or DEX roll when appropriate. I'm still not seeing a practical difference here.

 

cheers, Mark

[The Main Man]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

This subject was extensively discussed, debated, argued, then finally screamed about. Names were called, fights were picked, and numerous people were banned, most temporarily, some permanently. Others exiled themselves out of anger over the subject, and how they were treated by people on the other side of the fight. A few went so far as to go back and delete every single post they ever made before they left.

 

Yes. Tempers really did run that high.

 

In short... there can be no civilized discussion of this topic. So don't try.

 

If you're interested, the threads might still be around somewhere, or you can PM people who were here at the time and see if they're willing to discuss it. Don't be surprised if they won't, though.

 

*runs hand over facial battle scar, a single tear falling...*

 

Never forget The Great COM Debate.

[The Main Man]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

*reads more of thread*

 

Oh for the love of Pete!

 

COM either piggybacked on Presence (so just use limited PRE) or else it was pure GM fiat that costed points. It didn't stand on its own two legs as a CHAR. It was weird in its price structure; it was the only CHAR that changed SFX and costed points once it reached the negative scores. Striking Appearance is much more logical and consistent with HERO's overall governing theory.

 

That said, there is another CHAR that could use some reworking: INT; but that's a discussion for another time.

[Lucius]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

Yeah I did. I see multiple stat.s all with about the same amount of descriptive text' date=' [b']all [/b] (apart from STR) with 2-3 sentences suggesting possible uses. I really, truly honestly, don't see a significant difference, and it baffles me that people continue to spout the line that there are no rules for COM. The section on CHA contains exactly as many rules on COM as it does on DEX, and that's simple fact. In the CHA description section of RAW COM got exactly as much attention as anything else - STR excepted. The difference, as I have noted is that there are no skills or secondaries based on COM - not that there are no rules for it.

 

So yeah, it bugs the hell out of me when people say there are no rules on COM - when in fact the same amount of text and exactly the same amount of rules guidance is given as for other stat.s, STR excluded. I always assume people who state that simply haven't read the rules. The rules are pretty basic: you can allow a COM roll when appropriate. Of course that's the same rule as for CON and DEX (or PRE or INT): you can allow a CON or DEX roll when appropriate. I'm still not seeing a practical difference here.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Mardoc, I've also read the rules and I'm also baffled that you can say this.

 

CON: Determines when you're stunned

 

DEX: Determines initiative

 

PRE: Used in PREsence attacs

 

INT: Determines Perception roll

 

COM: "COM rolls are almost unheard of." That's taken word for word from my copy of the Fifth Edition. It's also obviously wrong based on the reported experience of a lot of people online here, but that's what's in the book.

 

You're saying you honestly don't see a difference here?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary sometimes wonders if everyone got the same books.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

 

I always figured that the original authors of Hero assumed that the average H

ero consumer would be smart enough to figure out what to do with COM without devoting lots of text to it. It is my opinion that the Characteristic should have recieved an "overhaul" for the 6th edition with specific rules (examples?)There applied to it, rather than being dropped completely. And there is still room for Striking Appearance in addition to Comeliness, this is Hero we are talking about after all. Hand Attack exists to augment STR, why cant Striking Appearance augment COM?