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Dispeling Forcefield with a Focus


bigdamnhero

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Looking for some thoughts & ideas on how folks would handle Dispel against a Forcefield power with a Breakable Focus. I understand the RAW*; this is an interpretation question.

 

Champions campaign, standard superheroic level. A gun-fu character with crazy amounts of Luck has figured out that if he shoots the aliens' force field in just the right spot, the bullet can set up a feedback wave that shorts the thing out. He can fit 22d6 of Dispel into his MP, for an average roll of 77. The standard alien forcefield is 14 rPD and 14 rED with Protects Carried Items and OIF Belt for 52 AP. Defensive powers are doubled against Adjustment Powers, so he'd need to roll 104 or better on 11 dice to make it work. [sad trombone]

 

But the character doesn't care about the rED, because all his attacks are physical. 6e1 p194 does allow the possibility of defining a Dispel as only affecting either rPD or rED, and 22d6 is enough to Dispel just the rPD. So Question 1: would you allow the player to buy this as Dispel Only vs. the rPD? Is it unbalanced? Does it make sense for this sfx? Why or why not?

 

Question 1a: if the above was a Drain instead of a Dispel, would that change your answer?

 

Next issue: Dispelling a forcefield is of limited help if the target can just switch it back on at the start of their next Phase. But the forcefield has an OIF Belt. Normally when a Focus power is Dispelled, I tend to say the Focus is drained or damaged in some way and can't be used until it's repaired, typically between combats. (6e1 p195, tho the text leaves a lot of room for GM's discretion here.) So Question 2: Assuming the Dispel roll exceeds the AP of the rPD, but not the AP of the rPD and rED combined, what happens to the Focus? Does the whole thing short out? Is just the rPD on the fritz? Or is the Focus unaffected and the target can reboot the rPD on their next Phase?

 

 

Question 2a: If the Belt has other defenses attached to it, like Power Def, Flash Def, etc, does that change your answer? Does it make a difference if they all have Unified Power or not?

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

* Unless of course I don't, in which case I trust someone will `splain that to me!

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1. I would allow it.

2. Because the entire power was not Dispelled, I would rule that it could be turned on again in the next Phase.

3. Other defenses make the power belt more than one power so yes, it would affect my decision in that I would not allow the Dispel PD to destroy everything.

4. Unified Power is tricky. I would have to re-read that section to give you an answer. My "gut" reaction is that Unified Power is a Limitation and exists for just this sort of thing. It seems like an exploit because the actual AP needed to Dispel all of the powers is much higher than your player can drum up. On the other hand, the target has chosen a very specific Limitation that seems like it would apply.  Maybe you can come to a compromise and start attaching a degrading Activation roll to reboot (think Ablative) every time the PC shuts the power down. Eventually the letter of Unified Power is met without it being an exploit.

 

Just my initial thoughts.

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I wouldn't allow it because you're not actually dispelling the power.  PD and ED are not separate powers within Resistant Protection (unless build that way for some reason), so you can't shut off some of the power.  Dispel is all-or-nothing.  

 

As I understand the rules, any power that's been dispelled can always already be turned on the next phase; dispel doesn't have permanent effects.

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I think you need to first define what you mean by "shorting the thing out". Is the "thing" being "shorted out" the force field or the focus? And when you say "shorted out" do you mean broken and non-functioning (but not destroyed)? Or do you mean only partially disabled, as in only some of its abilities are rendered non-functional?

 

If, for example, the concept is that this super feedback wave shorts out the internal circuitry of the focus such that it is no longer functional at all, then (1) I'd use the focus breaking rules to determine the impact of the feedback wave, and if the damage is enough to break the focus, then (2) all powers bought through it are then unusable until the focus is repaired. As for the feedback wave itself, well, that can be rolled as whatever kind of damage roll seems fitting, since I'm assuming you haven't established exactly what that is in your game world, right? Maybe just take the gun's normal bullet DC rating and roll an equivalent KA against the focus or something.

 

Or is this a case of a character with a gun featuring a 22d6 Dispel described as bullet rounds that "knock out technology" in some broad, unspecified manner? Since the means by which that works isn't being explained by its sfx, you'll be struggling to figure out how to make it work a lot. Maybe broad, non-specific effects based on sfx that have no established in-game mechanics should be avoided?

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If the Focus is not unbreakable, then if it took BODY, then it would lose a power, per the damaging a focus rules (if they still exist in 6th).

But it didn't take BODY, it was Dispelled/Drained...

 

BTW, it should be 22d6 rolled to try to get 104 (twice 52) and dispel the power. Still a very high roll.

Right - typo on my part - thanks.

 

As I understand the rules, any power that's been dispelled can always already be turned on the next phase; dispel doesn't have permanent effects.

Normally, yes. But 6e1 p195 says that when a Power with a Focus is Dispelled, at GM's discretion it can damage the Focus in some non-permanent way that prevents the character from immediately re-starting the Power. To me, that's a great way to play up the fact that Focus is a Limitation without just Disarming the character over and over. But RAW understandably points out it depends on the sfx involved, so I'm trying to brainstorm the best way to apply it in this case.

 

PD and ED are not separate powers within Resistant Protection...

I agree that's a key question. PD and ED are separate characteristics, and I could just as easily apply Resistant to them as Advantages, in which case they are clearly separate elements. So why should it work differently if I buy the same thing as Resistant Protection?

 

Here's the relevant paragraph from 6e1 p194:

 

When a character uses Dispel against a Defense Power such as Resistant Protection, he must Dispel the entire Power, both its PD and its ED. He cannot choose to, for example, Dispel only the ED. However, if a character defines his Dispel as, say, Dispel ED Resistant Protection, then it applies solely to the type of defense it’s defined as affecting. Characters cannot buy a Dispel against one of these Defense Powers and then restrict it to just PD or ED with a Limitation.

The first two sentences seems to agree with Christopher that you have to Dispel both at once. But the last two sentences seem to say the opposite...

 

I think you need to first define what you mean by "shorting the thing out". Is the "thing" being "shorted out" the force field or the focus? And when you say "shorted out" do you mean broken and non-functioning (but not destroyed)? Or do you mean only partially disabled, as in only some of its abilities are rendered non-functional?

Right, that is exactly what I'm trying to reason through, but I'm also trying to come at it from a What's Fair standpoint. The sfx is that the bullet hits the forcefield in juuust the right spot to disrupt it. So from an sfx standpoint, we could say it causes the whole FF to crash (PD & ED). Or we could say it throws off the modulation allowing physical objects through but still stops energy attacks (PD but not ED); or vice-versa. We could say the belt (Focus) is unaffected, and the belt just has to be turned back on, or it has to recalibrate for a Phase, or it needs to be repaired/recharged between combats. Basically I can doubletalk the sfx into any outcome I want.

 

I'd use the focus breaking rules to determine the impact of the feedback wave, and if the damage is enough to break the focus, then (2) all powers bought through it are then unusable until the focus is repaired.

But the rules on breaking Foci are for 1) Focus takes BODY, which 2) causes it to lose a Power. This is going the other direction: 1) Focus loses a Power, which 2) damages the Focus. I'm not sure how you would use that rule to go backwards?

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I think what the rule you quote means is, you can buy a Dispel Technology or Dispel Resistant Protection or whatever and then it always has to Dispel the whole power. Or you can buy -> Dispel Resistant PD <- specifically then it only applies to that - but then you've built a Dispel that can ONLY EVER be used against Resistant PD.

 

Frankly, I can't see the SFX you describe working that way.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Dispel Palindromedary

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But the rules on breaking Foci are for 1) Focus takes BODY, which 2) causes it to lose a Power. This is going the other direction: 1) Focus loses a Power, which 2) damages the Focus. I'm not sure how you would use that rule to go backwards?

It might be that going backwards is the problem. I detect a bit of a disconnect with cause and effect here. We have a focus that generates a force field. The force field itself can't really be damaged, but the focus that produces it can. By concept, this force field isn't a magical manifestation of supernatural energy where "dispelling" it means bleeding off the energy it is made up of. In this case I presume it is a natural force (like gravity) being generated by technology. You can't really "dispel" the laws of physics, but you can certainly damage the focus responsible for grinding the necessary particles to the point of producing the field.

 

So, what is this bullet doing? It can't be damaging (or "shorting out") the field itself because physics (in a sci-fi setting) doesn't work like that, and I'm assuming you want your campaign setting to make sense (for its genre). Remember, it is up to you to make the rules fit the genre, not the other way around. So it seems to me the bullet hits the force field, produces some sort of feedback wave which damages the focus, which in turns takes down the force field. There is no "going backwards" with this because we are defining a cause (bullet breaks focus) that is responsible for the effect (the force field goes down) instead of the much more difficult and wonky practice of establishing the effect first and then struggling to figure out how to explain and adjudicate the cause.

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Lucius & Christopher: that's the interpretation I came up with, but wanted to make sure it wasn't just me. Thanks!

 

You can't really "dispel" the laws of physics

It it wrong that I "heard" that in a bad Scottish accent? "Ye kana dispel the laws a' physics, Cap'n!" :snicker:

 

So, what is this bullet doing? It can't be damaging (or "shorting out") the field itself because physics (in a sci-fi setting) doesn't work like that

It's a superhero setting, as stated in the OP,  so "physics" is already a tad dodgy. Even in sci-fi, forcefields like this are rubber science: we don't know exactly how they work because they don't work in the real world (yet). The player's idea is that hitting the forcefield in just the right spot destabilizes the forcefield and causes it to collapse. That seems to pass the bare minimum of comic-book-plausibility IMO. The question is does that have any effect on the belt beyond, "Excuse me while I switch this back on."

 

So it seems to me the bullet hits the force field, produces some sort of feedback wave which damages the focus, which in turns takes down the force field. There is no "going backwards" with this because we are defining a cause (bullet breaks focus) that is responsible for the effect (the force field goes down) instead of the much more difficult and wonky practice of establishing the effect first and then struggling to figure out how to explain and adjudicate the cause.

OK, I'm fine with defining it that way, but I still don't see how that helps me with the mechanics? Dispels don't do BODY, so how would you use the Breaking The Focus rules? I guess we could redesign the whole thing as some kind of Penetrating RKA that only affects the Focus, but that seems more convoluted, not less, as well as further away from the original purpose.

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Whether or not the focus actually gets damaged/destroyed doesn't matter. You can still use the mechanic that already exists to determine whether or not the focus goes on the fritz due to the incoming damage.

 

By counting up the BODY of the Dispel dice and applying it as you would any other attack.

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I guess I'm not grokking why a bullet (are we talking about a metal slug here?) would ever be defined as a Dispel. What is this bullet, exactly? Is it a magic bullet that can just anihilate anything it comes into contact with? If that's the case, you might be better off defining it as a Transform (Functioning Thing Into Non-Functioning Thing) and be done with it (the Transform can be reversed by repairing the thing affected). Then you can decide on a case-by-case basis what "Non-functioning" means for any given thing that is tranformed. And as I recall, the mechanics for Transform are pretty straightforward.

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Whether or not the focus actually gets damaged/destroyed doesn't matter. You can still use the mechanic that already exists to determine whether or not the focus goes on the fritz due to the incoming damage.

 

By counting up the BODY of the Dispel dice and applying it as you would any other attack.

This makes perfect sense to me.

 

Now, a bullet that "Dispels" powers makes less sense to me, but that's a different matter.

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I guess I'm not grokking why a bullet (are we talking about a metal slug here?) would ever be defined as a Dispel. What is this bullet, exactly? Is it a magic bullet that can just anihilate anything it comes into contact with? If that's the case, you might be better off defining it as a Transform (Functioning Thing Into Non-Functioning Thing) and be done with it (the Transform can be reversed by repairing the thing affected). Then you can decide on a case-by-case basis what "Non-functioning" means for any given thing that is tranformed. And as I recall, the mechanics for Transform are pretty straightforward.

 

It is a regular bullet, fired by a Super Hero; you're over thinking the Special Effects of the whole thing....

 

If you want an explanation, the Super fires the bullet at the right angle, and the right moment to alter the phasing of the force field so that it only blocks energy attacks, physical attacks now pass through harmlessly, at least until the enemy can adjust (read Turn Back On) their force field so it works against rPD again.

 

Personally, I tihnk it's perfectly reasonable that a Dispel Vs "PD and/or rPD" works only on the PD portion of Resistant Defense. Otherwise there is a cognitive disconnect in the system regarding the defenses being separate to begin with. It's the one part of the "Resistant Defense" as a single Power that I don't like, it starts to lump different defenses into one 'Power' for no reason other than it's easier to handle logistically.

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It is a regular bullet, fired by a Super Hero; you're over thinking the Special Effects of the whole thing....

 

If you want an explanation, the Super fires the bullet at the right angle, and the right moment to alter the phasing of the force field so that it only blocks energy attacks, physical attacks now pass through harmlessly, at least until the enemy can adjust (read Turn Back On) their force field so it works against rPD again.

I suppose if thinking about it at all constitutes overthinking it, then I am definitely guilty as charged. The thing is, I have yet to hear an explanation for this bullet power that makes any sense to me whatsoever. A good Hero System rule of thumb: Describe what a power is doing in the game world (in a way that makes sense without resorting to handwavium), and the proper mechanics will follow naturally from that description. A huge clue that a power has no strong concept--if indeed it has one at all--is when the GM struggles to find appropriate mechanics to handle a situation that arises during play.

 

I guarantee you that no Champions GM I've ever played with would have allowed a "regular" bullet (or the Super Act of firing one) to be defined as a Drain vs. Force Field without a really good explanation for the sfx.

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Personally, I tihnk it's perfectly reasonable that a Dispel Vs "PD and/or rPD" works only on the PD portion of Resistant Defense. Otherwise there is a cognitive disconnect in the system regarding the defenses being separate to begin with. It's the one part of the "Resistant Defense" as a single Power that I don't like, it starts to lump different defenses into one 'Power' for no reason other than it's easier to handle logistically.

 

What we have here is a, "Dispel only the part of a target's defense that defends against my attacks." It reduces the amount of Dispel needed to disrupt the power. How do you handle the game balance issue?

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While personally I see no problem with dispel coming from a bullet. I would never allow the player to specify only the PD portion.

 

Had the player considered making a called shot with the normal modifier (-2 I think) to hit the focus, this destroying the focus with his bullet?

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For those who are interested, here's how the player described the sfx. The character is a demi-speedster with crazy amounts of luck and some gun-fu, so most of his attacks already center around hitting just the right spot or at just the right time.
 

The rubber science is "simple": [supporting NPC] has been analyzing footage of the [aliens], and he noticed that there are a couple of "inversion points" in their shields -- places where the geometry forces a flip in the shield's active direction.  Of course, that's a weak point, so they've covered them with another, smaller shield to prevent people like me from sniping them.  However, it's "theoretically possible" (science-speak for "probably not going to happen") to have a small projectile get caught between the shields, causing rapid heating the the shield generator, and a lowering of the overall shield's efficiency. 

So temporarily disrupting the forcefield is the primary purpose; damaging the Focus is just a side effect to prevent them from immediately reactivating it.

 

What we have here is a, "Dispel only the part of a target's defense that defends against my attacks." It reduces the amount of Dispel needed to disrupt the power. How do you handle the game balance issue?

True, which is why I asked the question. OTOH, many of his teammates have energy attacks, so the balance is it only lowers the target's defenses vs half the party.

 

Had the player considered making a called shot with the normal modifier (-2 I think) to hit the focus, this destroying the focus with his bullet?

Hmm...no, we hadn't thought about that. That seems like a simple way of handling it, and doesn't require adding a new power. Of course, he'd still have to exceed the field's rPD (or AP/5 if that were larger) to do any Body damage to the Focus. But he has an attack with AP & Penetrating, so he's usually guaranteed to slip at least a point or two of Body through.

 

Hmm again...that leads to a different question: If a character with Focus-based defenses is hit with a Penetrating Attack and takes 1-2 Body solely as a result of the Penetrating, does that Body count as damage against the Focus? I've never played it that way, and it seems like it would make Penetrating pretty overpowering if every single hit is going to destroy a Power.

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Hmm again...that leads to a different question: If a character with Focus-based defenses is hit with a Penetrating Attack and takes 1-2 Body solely as a result of the Penetrating, does that Body count as damage against the Focus? I've never played it that way, and it seems like it would make Penetrating pretty overpowering if every single hit is going to destroy a Power.

 

If the attack was targeting the focus then I would say yes.

This is the equivalent of trying to hit Juggernaut's or Magneto's helms upwards to get it off their heads. It is a know technique in the setting and the X-men often try it knowing otherwise the foe is too powerful. However when generally attacking the armor works as normal, but their is no penalty to attack the focus.

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I don't see any reason that buying "Dispel rPD" is any kind of a problem: all of these are separate Powers: Mental Defense, Physical Defense, Energy Defense, Power Defense, each of the Sense Flash Defenses.

 

It's only when we buy "Resistant Defense" do they suddenly become a single Power in the system; and you could make an argument that's not even true unless you're working solely inside the Hero Designer construct.

 

Therefore buying a Dispel versus "Resistant Physical Defenses" is perfectly legal, mechanically. Whatever SFX you attach to that is irrelevant, or at least, only a consideration once you hit the campaign level.

 

The question then becomes: What happens when Dispel rPD comes into contact with a Resistant Defense built with multiple defenses?

 

Well, you can easily breakdown the AP of each part of the Resistant Defense into it's components; say 9 AP of Resistant Power Defense, 12 AP of Resistant Physical Defense, and 12 AP of Resistant Energy Defense. (why a campaign has or needs Resistant Power Def is also irrelevant: it is also a mechanically legal construct.)

 

At that point, from a pure Mechanics point of view, you apply the Dispel Roll versus the AP of the applicable Defense portion. What's left is to explain it via Special Effects within the framework of the campaign. And at that - all you need is agreement between GM and Players that things do, in fact, work exactly as being described.

 

We often buy Dispel Versus "That one defense I go against a lot" - why would you ever buy it otherwise? That, in my opinion, isn't even a useful question. In fact, as far as questions go, it's a bad one. The only answer is "I'm forcing my player to be less effective because of an artificial Power construct created for no discernable reason in the rules, that may not even exist to begin with."

 

Of course, hitting a Focus to knock out a Defense is also a perfectly valid way - either as actually attacking the focus, or as part of the SFX of why you're buying Dispel on a bullet. Quite possibly the Dispel rPD also needs "must do Body to Focus" Limitation on it to even work at all....

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