Armor of many parts

[wick]

I am building an IIF focus armor that consists of a few powers and I have a few questions:

 

Resistant protection 6/4:  IIF, extra time: Extra phase,

 

Extra time represents time to don the suit and thus activate it (being able to instantly wear a costume makes sense for some heroes, but I want to be a bit more realistic since there is little reason my character could do that).

 

I also want life support Safe environment cold and heat. on this suit

 

So I was looking at this for the build:

 

Life support Safe environment intense cold + Intense heat:  IIF, Extra phase

 

 

Am I double dipping on the extra phase limitation?  I want it so I take the extra phase to don the armor which gives me the resistant defense and Life support simultaneously. Or would that be an extra phase to don the resistant protection and then an extra phase to don the Life support the way it is written above?

 

What if instead I Link the Life support to the resistant protection and drop the extra time on the life support would that be better for what I am trying to do?   

 

Would Unified power be appropriate since something that negates my armor would also negate the Life support? Also, do I need 2 or 3 powers in a unified  group of powers? (I can see the wording as you can add this power to a group of 2 powers or as you need at least 2 powers in a unified group)

 

[Steve Long]

Mostly this is a "how to" question more suitable for input from lots of people, so I'm moving it to the Discussion board. The one rules question for me to answer is that it's not double-dipping to take the Extra Time Limitation on each of the powers.

[Crusher Bob]

It sounds like the disadvantage you want is 'only in alternate (hero) ID (-1/4)' (6E1 p 386). The extra time disad is generally for things that take extra time to use, like an attack you have to charge up.

 

If you take 'extra time, only to start' on all of your powers, this 'works' but it's different from wearing a suit of power armor that can't be taken away. Most notably, anything that turns your powers off (like being stunned for non-persistent powers) you would then need to take the time to start up again. If it was 'only in alternate ID', then even if your powers got turned off, then it takes no time to turn them on again.

[wick]

It sounds like the disadvantage you want is 'only in alternate (hero) ID (-1/4)' (6E1 p 386). The extra time disad is generally for things that take extra time to use, like an attack you have to charge up.

 

If you take 'extra time, only to start' on all of your powers, this 'works' but it's different from wearing a suit of power armor that can't be taken away. Most notably, anything that turns your powers off (like being stunned for non-persistent powers) you would then need to take the time to start up again. If it was 'only in alternate ID', then even if your powers got turned off, then it takes no time to turn them on again.

 

1. Resistant Protection and Life support are both persistent, so even if Knocked out or stunned they still work. ( but thank you for pointing this out, I had not considered that aspect.)

 

2. I perceive that there maybe instances where I am in my secret ID or undercover where I can still get to wear the armor under my clothes. That is why it is bought as IIF. Not to far fetched when you may be infiltrating an organization in your non-heroic ID.  Or consider having lunch with your DNPC, and the villains crash through the cafe to take them hostage.  Maybe a bit paranoid to wear a costume under your clothing all the time but it happens often in comics and in the movies. If you take "only in Alternate ID" I doubt that would meet the requirement to be in my non heroic ID and still use the power.

 

To Millennial Master: Thank you for the rule clarification but would I spend one phase activating my Resistant protection (sfx: Donning the suit) and then have to spend another phase to activate (sfx: donning the suit) the Life support? Or would I spend one phase to don the suit and get both Resistant Protection and Life support? 

 

I apologize for making this way more complicated, but I am a fan of armor being more realistic

[mrinku]

Wick, as both powers are bought through the same focus and the activation is defined as putting it on, you would be fine to activate both together. It's normal for bundled powers.

 

The flip side is that neither will be available until the suit is donned, and if the suit is taken away both powers are lost.

 

If both powers were defined as separate focuses with activation times (i.e. LS Mask and RP Body Armour) you'd have to activate them one after the other.

[Crusher Bob]

1. Resistant Protection and Life support are both persistent, so even if Knocked out or stunned they still work. ( but thank you for pointing this out, I had not considered that aspect.)

I'd argue that making powers that are normally 0 END persistent powers 'take extra time to start' generally automatically makes them non-persistent, just like making them 'Only cost END to start'. Otherwise it's not a disadvantage on the power, as you never have to turn the power off once you turn it on. If the power had other things added to it, like 'visible power effects' or 'side effects' or 'lockout' that meant that you might not want to keep the power on all the time, this might still be a viable disadvantage without the need to make the power non-persistent. But for a power that is otherwise 0 END, persistent, and invisible like life support, and with no other disads making you not want to otherwise have the power running all the time, it's not really a disadvantage.

 

I can also see the 'extra time, only to start' disad being applied to a power that's the gatekeeper to a bunch of powers with the OHID disad. For example, if the hero's Hero ID is grown or shrunk, you could buy something like 'shrinking (0 END, persistent, extra time only to start) and have that power as the required time delayed gateway to the OHID powers.

[wick]

Crusher Bob, these persistent powers just bought alone without the limitations would mean that you have the Armor 24/7 and they would even operate while asleep.

 

Are you saying that because of this, Steel man who is always armored and life supported does not have an advantage over Armored girl who has to actually put on her armor one leg at a time? Armored girl would be slower to spring into action if her base is attacked in the middle of the night or perhaps have to risk combat without her armor while Steel man would only need to roll out of bed. It may be a moot point if the GM never puts me in that situation but similar situations have occurred in comics and film. For example, in most of the Iron Man films Tony Stark did not access to his full armor, requiring him to use lesser versions of his power or partial bits of his armor as the flew to him.  

 

I know in Champions there are lots of ways to skin the cat and you can easily cheese on the limitations. For example, I was thinking of throwing in the Real Armor limitation and unified power but it seems like those would be redundant to already having a Focus that takes extra time to activate. I could see Real Armor if I chose other things about the armor to limit it besides taking time to don.

 

I briefly considered a multi-power for the armor but that seemed more of you can use option A, B, or C and would have been weird for persistent powers ( I suppose they would need to have been bought non persistent.)

 

 

So far I have it written up that both are on an IFF, the Resistant Protection (RP) is extra timed, and the LS is linked to the RP. I hope this should cover all of my bases with how the SFX should work. And thank you for your feed back. I have a butt ton of questions on Unified power but will relegate those to another thread.

[Crusher Bob]

Armor that takes 'a little while to put on' already has that 'time to put on' covered by the focus or OHID limitation.

 

IMHO, the amount of time that a focus takes to 'put on' should also have some reflection on how long the focus takes to remove from you. So that's the unspoken advantage of foci that take a while to put on. So saying your armor takes around 5 minutes to put on should say to the GM that someone trying to take your armor off should take closer to 5 minutes than the 12 seconds written into the disad.

 

 

 

Resistant defenses with Life Support (linked) would generally not be allowed, either. There's no situation where you wouldn't want to use resistant defenses, so linking life support to them isn't a disadvantage. It may be a unified power, depending on the SFX.

[Lucius]

I briefly considered a multi-power for the armor but that seemed more of you can use option A, B, or C and would have been weird for persistent powers ( I suppose they would need to have been bought non persistent.)

Not necessarily. Say you have a Multipower and one of the slots is Life Support. You activate that slot. Then get knocked unconscious. The Life Support, being Persistent, continues to operate. You wake up and don't change the slots. You go home, go to bed, wake up the next day - Life Support still operates. Until you shift the points out of that slot and into another.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a persistent palindromedary

[Lucius]

Resistant defenses with Life Support (linked) would generally not be allowed, either. There's no situation where you wouldn't want to use resistant defenses....

Sure about that?

 

Lucius ALexander

 

And a very persistent palindromedary

[Crusher Bob]

I can imagine a life support linked to resistant defenses that I'd allow in an instant.

 

I'm on fire!

Resistant PD and ED

Damage shield

life support: no breathing, heat protection

(some collection of linked and side effect disads)

 

Since there's an immediate disadvantage to being able to use the linked power, you can get the points. It's easy to see where you would like to have LS: no breathing or LS: protection from heat and not be on fire. But there seems to be no point that I'd want to use the life support (provided by my focus: armor) without also wanting to use the otherwise non-disadvantaged armor (also provided by my focus: armor).

 

Or even something like:

Extra efficient breath holding:

Life support: no breathing

Extra time: full phase (only to start) (-1/4)

Time limit: 5 minutes (-3/2)

Limited power: must be able to breathe normally for the extra time charge up, any NND gas like effects can't be avoided unless the hero can find a place to take a breath not effected by the gas (-1/4)

Active points: 10

Real points: 3

 

So I could take a full phase to take a deep breath, and then hold my breath for 5 minutes. And the difference between this and regular breath holding would be that I could take recoveries during that 5 minutes, which you can't normally do while holding your breath. The extra time: only to start is an obvious disad on this power construction, since I can't just have LS active all the time, and if I find a time that I want to not breathe, I need at least a full phase where I can breathe before I stop breathing.

[Lucius]

And the difference between this and regular breath holding would be that I could take recoveries during that 5 minutes, which you can't normally do while holding your breath.

Yes, which would seem to cripple the marine mammals in the Bestiary.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks I should swipe your power build

[mrinku]

Regarding time to deactivate, just because it might take a phase or two to put something on doesn't mean the same applies to taking it off. That may in fact be the case, but I can kick off my shoes far quicker than it takes to lace them up properly, and I can definitely discard a backpack much faster than it takes to pick it up, get my arms in the straps and click in the chest and belly straps. Quick release parachute harness also springs to mind.

 

And I can assure you from practical experience that it takes far less time to get out of a suit of armour than it takes to get the thing on, adjusted properly and so on. But it is a non-zero time task.

 

Depends on how you describe the item, really.

 

As far as "extra time to activate" changing a Persistant power to a Constant one... er, no. That would be a further limitation, such as Nonpersistant or Costs Endurance (which does automatically make a Persistant power into a Constant one).

[wick]

The quick release on the Body armor I wore on my second stint in the Stan had a quick release which was built in for a reason. Pretty nice if you find yourself submerged, say in a Humvee on its roof.  Still the first IBA I wore was quicker to remove than to put on as well, even without a quick release option.  

 

All in all it may depend on familiarity with the armor as well as if you are being gentle about the procedure.

 

I don't remember seeing any rules about taking armor off, but usually that would not be something to worry about. If you are captured the enemy presumably has lots of time to peel you. if they are trying remove your armor to kill you, that is a moot point because they already KO'd you and should just continue what they were doing. If it really mattered, you could say it takes 1/2 time to take off as put on, maybe 1/4 time if you don't care about the wearer or the foci. That is just a GM ruling though not anything official to back it up. 

[mrinku]

That's right. When you get down to it, the precise amount of time to take off will not usually matter in combat terms, which is how HERO normally costs things. And the activation time will only be worth points if you normally have the item unequipped at the start of combat. If the item is a special costume you can wear under your clothes you get no points for it needing ten minutes to put on, though you would if you had to go through a sequence to activate its powers each combat, or it had some other problems (preventing you from operating in your Secret ID being the classic).

 

Perhaps all you really need here is the Real Armour (-¼) Limitation? That takes into account minor realistic factors like you're considering. Or really, just leave it to special effects and how the power has been defined to start with.

 

It may be worth pointing out that while "change costume" defaults to one Phase, even in traditional Superhero settings it may take much longer to find somewhere discreet to perform the change to avoid blowing your Secret ID. Doesn't matter how fast Barry Allen or Clark Kent can change, they still need to duck into a deserted corridor, or find a phone booth, and their superspeed won't help them much until they're out of sight.

[wick]

Much of the value of the limitation is based on how the GM runs the game.  If there are many instances where I have to react quickly while in my secret ID or I often have to forget activating my armor to go on the offensive then the limitation may be undervalued. On the other hand it is free points if the adventure is always on my terms and I am never faced with having to delay combat to change into costume. 

 

Since that is all subjective, how about compare it to a character without the limitation or even with their armor always on. Are their potential situations where I would be at a disadvantage because of this limitation? Yes? Then it is a limitation.  What value??? that is harder to know. But my particular character would be out a significant portion of their defense or would need to sacrifice a few phases where a normal character would be acting

[mrinku]

That's pretty much going to comparable to "Only in Alternate ID" IMHO and in almost all cases will count for a -¼ Limitation (though that particular Limitation isn't allowed to be combined with Focus). Honestly, the fact that the power is bought as a Focus in the first place dictates that there are times it won't be available.

 

My advice is to define the What and then work out the How. How you build a discreet bulletproof vest is probably going to differ from How you build a magic ring that requires a command word, even if they provide the same base power and have common attributes like IIF.

 

If you have to do a costume change to get the values of the power and it takes longer than the default single Phase, Extra Time (to Activate only) is usually the best Limitation. If you change in a standard Phase (or less), Only in Alternate ID is probably better for non-focus powers and can be considered built in to Focus ones or not depending on how they are defined.

[Cantriped]

Once upon a time, I took the time to write out some suits of armor with "all the modifiers they actually deserve". That included Extra Time, Gestures (Both Hands, Throughout), Concentration (Throughout), etc, and was based on the logic that activating the power was 'putting on the armor' and deactivating it was 'taking the armor off'.

 

The end result was that the character who bought armor with CP was able to afford much, much better Defenses than they needed/deserved (Defense powers are already cheap even without dividing their costs by 2 or 3). The limitations basically never limited the character (because who chooses to try to fight crime without most of their defensive powers activated), unless they completely debilitated the character (I.E. the armor was Dispelled and couldn't be reactivated in Combat-Time, or combat started while they were unequipped).

 

Nowadays, I consider the amount of time it takes to Don or Remove a suit of armor to be a valueless quality, in much the same way that Personal/Universal Foci have the same value. I also consider it separate from activating or deactivating the armor (so Dispelling Armor doesn't make it fall off)*. However long it takes for you to put on your armor is balanced out by the fact that it is going to take the enemies just as long (or longer) to strip it off of you (making it significantly harder to deprive you of said defenses).

 

*I've never needed/wanted to build a power that Dispelled Armor, and generally treat armor as if it was Always On.

[mrinku]

The key point is that most kinds of armour in most settings are already being worn at the start of a fight, regardless of how easy it is to put it on. The Real Armour limitation covers things adequately as far as I'm concerned.

 

Some settings do have special needs. Superheroes will often be in civilian identity and may need to activate a Focus (which could be opening a briefcase and putting on the suit where no one can see (old school Iron Man) or calling out a code sequence and waiting for the suit to arrive (MCU Iron Man). That's when an activation time does become relevant. On the other hand, some supers seem to get by just fine with wearing a protective suit under clothes (i.e. Captain America) and change just as fast as those with non-protective costumes.

[doccowie]

Much of the value of the limitation is based on how the GM runs the game.  If there are many instances where I have to react quickly while in my secret ID or I often have to forget activating my armor to go on the offensive then the limitation may be undervalued. On the other hand it is free points if the adventure is always on my terms and I am never faced with having to delay combat to change into costume. 

 

Since that is all subjective, how about compare it to a character without the limitation or even with their armor always on. Are their potential situations where I would be at a disadvantage because of this limitation? Yes? Then it is a limitation.  What value??? that is harder to know. But my particular character would be out a significant portion of their defense or would need to sacrifice a few phases where a normal character would be acting

Absolutely. By taking limitations you are telling the GM you want them to be a factor.

And by taking the second limitation you are expecting your power to cause problems or be non-functional about twice as often as someone who just takes IIF, or OIHID. Maybe about a third of the time, or one in three encounters rather than one in five for IIF. 

 

Comparing with a character without the limitation - a character can have PD/ED 8 with no limitations, PD/ED 10 with IIF, or PD/ED 12 with IIF/Extra Time. The GM has to ensure that none of the three choices are obviously better than the other, and that all players are equally happy with their choice.

[wick]

Once upon a time, I took the time to write out some suits of armor with "all the modifiers they actually deserve". That included Extra Time, Gestures (Both Hands, Throughout), Concentration (Throughout), etc, and was based on the logic that activating the power was 'putting on the armor' and deactivating it was 'taking the armor off'.

 

The end result was that the character who bought armor with CP was able to afford much, much better Defenses than they needed/deserved (Defense powers are already cheap even without dividing their costs by 2 or 3). The limitations basically never limited the character (because who chooses to try to fight crime without most of their defensive powers activated), unless they completely debilitated the character (I.E. the armor was Dispelled and couldn't be reactivated in Combat-Time, or combat started while they were unequipped).

 

Nowadays, I consider the amount of time it takes to Don or Remove a suit of armor to be a valueless quality, in much the same way that Personal/Universal Foci have the same value. I also consider it separate from activating or deactivating the armor (so Dispelling Armor doesn't make it fall off)*. However long it takes for you to put on your armor is balanced out by the fact that it is going to take the enemies just as long (or longer) to strip it off of you (making it significantly harder to deprive you of said defenses).

 

*I've never needed/wanted to build a power that Dispelled Armor, and generally treat armor as if it was Always On.

Egad! I am not trying to milk every limitation I can out of it. But there should be some difference between a characters whose armor appears magically on them and a character who just puts on some jumped up Kevlar.  I think I like the "Real Armor" limitation with the Sfx that it requires a clothing change to be activated. If she is captured her armor could be taken away so its a Focus from what I read about OIAID they cannot, but steps can be taken to prevent them from going into secret ID. If I make it a universal focus I could lend it to someone else if needed. If its personal only, it makes the focus function more like OIAID. 

 

I know there is a fine difference between Focus and OIAID. I made another similar character that did used OIAID for their armor and most of the time they function the same as far as I can tell. What really is the difference? Perhaps people use OIAID when they should be using Focus? What happens to OIAID man when he is captured, can he be deprived of his alternate Identity to prevent him from using his power? I suppose there is also a similarity between using multiform and OIAID as well ( Does Hulk's strength/toughness come from using multiform or just use OIAID for example).

 

Comic book Thor has secret ID where he uses a walking stick to transform into Thor. Focus, OIAID, or just a Sfx for Multiform?   Although the stick can be taken from his Secret ID it cannot be used by others to transform into Thor (right?). And even when the stick is Mjolnir, Thor can only use it (I know there have been a few others who could, but very rare event.) I would call that OIAID, however Thor has vastly different characteristics, personality, complications from the secret ID so multiform maybe applicable built with a Focus (would OIAID make sense for multiform?)

[mrinku]

In the case of the Donald Blake/Thor, it would be best done as multiform, though you could use OIAID on all his powers and most of his stats. Outside of the early issues Thor is a distinct person to Donald Blake, but in HERO terms there could have been a rewrite.

 

Marvel Mjolnir would be Personal and Indestructable, but with the caveat that "Personal" is actually "those worthy of the power of Thor".