Is not Density Increase OP?

[Duke Bushido]

Well as I said: T-port, Leaping, Tunnelling, and even the original Desolid all had allowances for interaction with certain masses.  Flight never did.   It just bugged me.  It has always bugged me.  I know that runming doesn't, either, but at that is the "gimme" that all humans have (to a point), I rolled with it and moved on.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Here's my case for Density Increase not being like, say, blast or flash in obviousness: its not in the comics.  Nobody in the comics is figured to be extraordinarily heavy just by looking at them unless its a special case "that guy is made entirely of lead!"  So by default its not an obvious power, its a complication or visible effects someone bought.  BUt that's just my personal opinion and how I'd run my game.

[Sean Waters]

On 11/26/2021 at 1:41 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

Wouldn't all of the components also have the Unified Power limitation?  You Drain the DI, not the individual components.

 

If you get drained of PD and some of that PD comes from DI it doesn't also drain your strength. Sure, if your DI is drained then everything you get from it is reduced, but that's probably not a common drain. 

 

If you unify your perma density powers then a PD drain would also drain your Strength.

 

Conversely if you have 'perma density' using the Hero template it might look like a DI drain would work against you but it wouldn't. Sure the GM could fudge it but:

 

1. That's not fair, and

2. This is a problem entirely created by having unnecessary alternative ways of doing the same thing.

 

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well as I said: T-port, Leaping, Tunnelling, and even the original Desolid all had allowances for interaction with certain masses.  Flight never did.   It just bugged me.  It has always bugged me.  I know that runming doesn't, either, but at that is the "gimme" that all humans have (to a point), I rolled with it and moved on.

 

 

The problem, as I understand it, and if I do then I agree, is inconsistency of approach. Either all movement should be affected by increased mass or none of it should.

[unclevlad]

You want clear, cut and dried rules when the game's trying to model as much as it can.

 

That's implicitly contradictory.

[Sean Waters]

3 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

You want clear, cut and dried rules when the game's trying to model as much as it can.

 

That's implicitly contradictory.

 

I do want clear rules. Sometimes that's inherently difficult, sometimes we go looking for difficulty, find it, propagate it and teach it to our children.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Either all movement should be affected by increased mass or none of it should.

 

But each one is affected in different ways even if you made mass affect them all.  For example no matter how much you weigh, you can teleport the same distance for the same points.  But you can only teleport a certain maximum mass limit: its all or nothing.

 

Again, this comes down to how Hero works and how it simulates the source material.  Hero doesn't start with complete powers, it gives the tools to build powers with.  So if you want mass to affect your flight, then it will.

 

And since the source material does not show someone slower just because they are heavy, then the game should not either.

 

Inconsistency is not a bad thing, if it makes sense and is consistent with the source material.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

You want clear, cut and dried rules when the game's trying to model as much as it can.

 

That's implicitly contradictory.

 

 

I do not disagree.

 

But That hasnt stopped them from trying a couple of thousand pages of rules in the ongoing attempt.   

 

 

[unclevlad]

DI as a power fundamentally includes a variation on Unified Power because it's a package deal.  It isn't a set of individual mods;  it's the package of all of them.  So a STR drain can't drain the STR from the DI, or Growth.  You drain the DI?  You don't take points off STR or PD or ED in individual chunks, you have to drain the individual chunk that is a unit of DI...and when you do, you get the STR, PD, and ED defined by that DI.    You also reduce the target's mass.

 

If I've built a character that's always 1600 pounds...if you drain my STR, PD, and ED, I'm still 1600 pounds.  I don't have DI, because that's not in my powerset.  I can't increase my density;  it IS 8.  (Assuming I'm human-sized.)  See, that's what the power Density Increase means...and that's the difference between someone ALWAYS 1600 pounds, and someone SOMETIMES 1600 pounds.  

 

OK...so you can argue that you should be able to choose.  I'm always this way...but is it' because "it's fundamentally what I am" or is it "my power creates these changes"?  In the one, there's nothing to drain.  In the other, there is.  With DI, the one is "I build with STR, PD, ED, and reduced KB and pay for it with a Complication" and the other is "I buy DI and take Always On."  But a drawback here is...OK, I just mitigate in a different way.  ESPECIALLY when I can buy Always On.  But how about this combo:

 

Shrinking 1 level

DI 3 levels

Both bought 0 END, Persistent, Always On

 

21 points.  +2 DCV, +15 STR, +3 PD/ED, "+2 Stealth".  No mass issues.  No KB adjustments.  No notable complications other than being really hard to hide your nature.  35 points' worth of powers for 21.  Perfectly legal...until you get into that little qualifier.  DI isn't OP on its own...but with Always On?  Now....it might well be.

 

Because the system is, as CRT notes, an approach with which to build powers, and by extension characters.  Shrinking, Growth, and DI in particular are semi-exceptions because they're full, but non-atomic, powers.  There are subtle differences between DI and a compound power of DI's component parts, and to extend, buying STR then linking the PD, ED, and KB resistance to those.