Power limit suggestions?

[Tech]

I'm thinking of creating a villain who can cause a blast of fire from underneath a hero that shoots upward, starting from the ground level. Reasonably, there should be a limitation of how high the fire will go, whether 20 feet, 50 feet, 100 feet, etc. Yes, the villain can cause it almost anywhere, but of course, not on or under water. What do you think the limitation would be on the power?

[Grailknight]

Indirect with Limited Range is how I'd do this. You might want to consider Reduced by Range either alone or in combination if the damage is similarly diminishing.  

[LoneWolf]

That sounds more like an area of effect line than a limitation.  Buy the power with the area of effect line, and a -1/2 limitation must start from ground.  How high the blast will go will depend on how much of an advantage you purchase. 

[Duke Bushido]

By default, the gout of fire is only going to hit a single target.  Start with Blast: (ED) Xd6, Indirect.

 

Figure out the range of this power.  That is your upper limit.

 

For example, if you have a range of 80" and you are targeting an opponent 20" away, then the Blast still has 60" of ....  Height?... available.   If the opponent is 60" away, then it still has 20" of height available to it.  I would like to take a moment to point out that this really only applies if you _miss_, since by default it affects a single target.  If you hit, then the target is assumed to have received the significant, damage-dealing portion of the attack, and there is nothing left to travel further.

 

This is all by default, of course.  At this point, you may wish to consider a custom limitation such as "gout of flame cannot exceed 3 meters" or something like that.  I won't get into the value there, as that is up to you and your group to determine.  I don't think it is a big disadvantage, since it helps to ensure that you won't take out any flying henchmen or any news chopper helping to spread the terror of your presence. 

 

You might, at this point, consider adding an advantage such as Area of Effect.

 

One thing I see get more consistenly overlooked with this Advantage than any other is that the power no longer radiates directly from you.  That is to say that if I have a wizard who can create a ball of fire two meter across and throw it at an enemy, that ball of fire is not necessarily two meters across when the wizard throws it.  It will become a 2-meter ball at the designated target hex and not before.  Think in terms of grenades.  They don't clear the entire area between you and where the blow up.  If you are lucky, they land right where you aimed and they blow up there.

 

Note that this is _not_ the same,as indirect because if you hit someone who is between you and your target, the AOE happens right there.  The grenade bounced off of your radioman and fell to the ground, just as an example.

 

There is an option for AOE called "Line," and it is tempting to jump straight to that, but remember that the line starts at the point you have targeted, or at the point you have hit on accident. 

 

If one wanted to create a wizard who could cast a tunnel-clearing orb of flame that started with him and travelled until it fizzled, he would take both the AOE: Line advantage _and_ the Disadvantage "no range."  This defaults the Line Effect to starting adjacent to the Player and running until his Area is fully consumed.  Remember that it will hit _everyone_ in the affected line, so be careful.

 

As a caveat:  the default rules for AOE mean you have only to target an adjacent hex to successfully hit anyone within the line- which is described and plotted by _you_- to successfully hit the opponent 80 meters away (assuming you have that many hexes in your line).  I have only read 6e once, and don't remember if this was addressed,  but if it wasn't, I would like to suggest at least one of the following house rules:

 

1)  apply range modifiers as usual to simulate the difficult in aiming the line "just so."

 

2)  use a regular attack roll against the distant target as if this was not an AOE attack. 

 

For what it is worth, I find option 1 to soothe most ruffled feathers, and it still allows significant advantage to the Player who paid for his AOE.

 

The section on this Advantage will tell you how to determine how long your line is, and it will be that size every single time you use it.  If you opt to go this route, remember that the range to which you can attack is unaffected, but your line begins exactly in the hex you are attacking.  However long your line calculates out to be, your wall of fire will be that high every single time.

 

Unless-

 

Now this is not only not discussed in the book, it rankles several of the people that I have suggested it to; I suspect because it isn't spelled out in the book, but...

 

Put a Limitation on your Advantage.  Take "Area of Effect" and assign "reduce range" not to the whole build, but to the AOE advantage.  Apply it a couple of times, until you get precisely the size you want for your gout of fire.

 

All that brings me to the option I would hearily suggest, knowing no more about the desired results than what you have told me:

 

There was an advantage called AOE: Hex.   I am not certain, but I think the newer editions renamed it to "Accurate" given how many of us used it specifically to build "almost can't miss" magic spells and superhero sharpshooters.

 

I cannot speak on Accurate, as I don't recall the wording, but the initial description of Hex (and I feel this can be implied from the rules foe AOE: Hexes when regarding volume overall and from reading the rules on enclosing a Force Wall /Barrier ) is that the area is a single hex (in the editions I use, this is 2 meters) in all directions- one hex across by one hex high.

 

This is the direction I would go, assuming that 2 meters is a sufficient height for your purposes.

 

 

I hooe something here helps.

 

[unclevlad]

11 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

That sounds more like an area of effect line than a limitation.  Buy the power with the area of effect line, and a -1/2 limitation must start from ground.  How high the blast will go will depend on how much of an advantage you purchase. 

 

AoE Line's point of origin is You, so it would still require Indirect.  Source Point can vary from use to use, path is direct is +1/2.  Now, what's the "from the ground, shooting up" worth?  First:  I'm gonna assume it means *straight* up, and that its point of origin could not be water (per OP).  So someone flying over water would be safe.

 

I guess I'd allow a -1/2 because Indirect and AoE Line are making this QUITE expensive.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

AoE Line's point of origin is You,

 

 

Is that Line?

 

I thought that was Trail.

[Christopher R Taylor]

AE Line starts from the target point unless you buy it no range.  However, if all you want is to fire someone in the air, then indirect an probably double knockback should do it.  The indirect is fixed and only goes upward from beneath the target so its a +¼ in my book.

[LoneWolf]

To me it makes sense if you are shooting a column of flame 20 meter into the air it would damage anything in its path.  If that is the case the best way to buy it is area of effect line.  Unless the power is bought with no range an area of effect line can target anything within range.  This is how you buy things like wall of fire that just damages anyone moving through it.  This is actually used an example in the side bar of the rule book

 

If the blast only affects a single target instead of covering the whole area of effect line would not be the best way to build it.    
 

[Hugh Neilson]

21 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You might, at this point, consider adding an advantage such as Area of Effect.

*****************************

There is an option for AOE called "Line," and it is tempting to jump straight to that, but remember that the line starts at the point you have targeted, or at the point you have hit on accident. 

**************************************************

As a caveat:  the default rules for AOE mean you have only to target an adjacent hex to successfully hit anyone within the line- which is described and plotted by _you_- to successfully hit the opponent 80 meters away (assuming you have that many hexes in your line).  I have only read 6e once, and don't remember if this was addressed,  but if it wasn't, I would like to suggest at least one of the following house rules:

 

1)  apply range modifiers as usual to simulate the difficult in aiming the line "just so."

 

2)  use a regular attack roll against the distant target as if this was not an AOE attack.

***************************************************

Put a Limitation on your Advantage.  Take "Area of Effect" and assign "reduce range" not to the whole build, but to the AOE advantage.  Apply it a couple of times, until you get precisely the size you want for your gout of fire.

 

 

 

The power as defined to me is an AoE Line which, under 6e, is +1/4 for a line that is 2 meters x 2 meters x [Maximum length].  For +1/4, the line is up to 16m long.  The length can be doubled for an extra +1/4 (or either of the other dimensions can be doubled.

 

This is a significant change from earlier editions, where the base power determined the base length of the line.  Looking at the rules, there is no restriction on the direction the line travels.  The target point is the center of one end of the line (so the point on the ground that the pillar of flame would rise from).  Given yours can only be vertical, I'd be open to a limitation on the incremental cost of the AoE advantage itself for that reduced flexibility.

 

A limitation on the whole power for the requirement there be ground below the target would also be reasonable. Many GMs would bundle the two together as one limitation. 

 

21 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

There was an advantage called AOE: Hex.   I am not certain, but I think the newer editions renamed it to "Accurate" given how many of us used it specifically to build "almost can't miss" magic spells and superhero sharpshooters.

 

I cannot speak on Accurate, as I don't recall the wording, but the initial description of Hex (and I feel this can be implied from the rules foe AOE: Hexes when regarding volume overall and from reading the rules on enclosing a Force Wall /Barrier ) is that the area is a single hex (in the editions I use, this is 2 meters) in all directions- one hex across by one hex high.

 

This is the direction I would go, assuming that 2 meters is a sufficient height for your purposes.

 

1 hex is gone in 6e (a 1 meter or 2 meter radius would only cost +1/4 anyway). "Accurate" is an additional +1/4 advantage allowing the attack to hit only a single target within a Radius AoE.  I see no reason I would not allow it on other AoE shapes, but the book says only radius.

 

14 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

AoE Line's point of origin is You, so it would still require Indirect.  Source Point can vary from use to use, path is direct is +1/2.  Now, what's the "from the ground, shooting up" worth?  First:  I'm gonna assume it means *straight* up, and that its point of origin could not be water (per OP).  So someone flying over water would be safe.

 

I guess I'd allow a -1/2 because Indirect and AoE Line are making this QUITE expensive.

 

Looking at 6e Indirect, one example of +1/4 is a source point of "the sky above the target's head", for a lightning bolt.  Altering the path of the power changes how it travels from its source point to its target, so that has not changed. Indirect would allow the character to target a point for the fire to shoot up from if there is a barrier  between him and the desired point of the flame burst.  It may not be needed for the AoE build.

 

11 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

To me it makes sense if you are shooting a column of flame 20 meter into the air it would damage anything in its path.  If that is the case the best way to buy it is area of effect line.  Unless the power is bought with no range an area of effect line can target anything within range.  This is how you buy things like wall of fire that just damages anyone moving through it.  This is actually used an example in the side bar of the rule book

 

If the blast only affects a single target instead of covering the whole area of effect line would not be the best way to build it.    
 

Well, if it is a narrow jet of flame, it might be stopped by the first target it hits...