Druid ability to pass thru plant-based barriers and entangles?

[unclevlad]

It's already a STOP sign power, tho, so making it too expensive feels like double jeopardy.  Then again, those warnings are downplayed/disregarded rather a lot anyway.

 

Your statement there is circular... if Clairsent gets made cheaper, we go back to "how can we reasonably define reasonably simple counters to Clairsent, without gutting it?"  

 

One thought:  recognize the needle-in-a-haystack issue of long-range Clairsentience.  We're largely conceding something like, say, Clairsent (sight group + normal healing) with x4 range and 2 levels of Mobile...that's 24m per phase, IIRC.  That's 45 points.  You'll likely want 1/2 END, +11, so 56 points.  I'm not worried about point limits on powers here, but trying to devise a decent, but not necessarily game-breaking, power.  This is a power with 1 km range.  If you're doing a random search?  It'll take a while.  Even if you can target, let's say, an unknown office in a 15-story office building...it'll take a while.  Not, you say, if you buy Penetrative...or even Partially Penetrative, as interior walls are far less robust most of the time...on your Sight, then it's going to be a lot faster.  So...one thing?  Review ALL sense mods when Clairsent's in play.  

 

Also note that you may need to know the *time*...think of a "stakeout" via Clairsentience, if you don't know when the 'good stuff' is gonna happen.

 

Clairsent is also a Standard Power...so it's got visible effects.

 

We've built a few Clairsent-blockers.  MANY of these can be made dirt cheap...Trigger with extensive setup limitations for setting up a room's blocking.  So ok, the player's power works nicely a few times, no problem.  Smart bad guys can start figuring things out...and higher-level meetings may be blocked. 

 

OTOH, if the Clairsent is principally used to do a tactical assessment...information says a gang of supers has gathered at a house on Sonata Street, said gang has multiple open arrest warrants, and the team is asked to apprehend them.  They go to the area, then team member Third Eye checks who's there...there's one in particular they want to make sure is present.  And this way, they can build a plan for ingress and neutralization...hopefully.  That's good roleplaying, not mystery-cracking.  

[Grailknight]

Well to make Clairsentience less expensive, you could simply treat it as a Sense instead of a Standard Power. That way it would cost 0 END, not be Obvious and not require Mobile to move the POV.

 

These changes would make it  more powerful than it is now but not more than the proposed Extended Range, Penetrative Sense offered as an alternative( A Metarule violation by the way ...)

 

But it doesn't make it harder to stop.  Invisibility works. Darkness with invisible Power Effects and only vs Clairsentience works perfectly as well. As long as the Sense groups in the Clairsentience are covered the power is stymied. Both are actually easier to stop than the guessing game you create with blocking Penetrative.

[Duke Bushido]

"In for a penny" and all that....

 

So if I put "Indirect" on my Energy Blast, then that blast no longer has to trace a straight line from my to the target.  It can originate from the sky, from an electrical outlet, from a ship at sea-   it can even spring into existence as a globe that surrounds the target then rapidly shrinks inward, delivering whatever damage it is supposed to deliver.  It can originate from a point between me and my target; it can originate from a laboratory on the moon.

 

I can use it like that stone mausoleum that fights superman uses his eye lasers all swooping and swerving and dive around obstacles and make taking cover pointless. 

 

The only limitation is that I can only use this power against targets that are within the range of the power.

 

So what happens if I put Indirect on my sight?

 

Can I look that things from a different point of view / perspective?  Is this how you make a periscope?  Can I use this to observe anything within my normal range of sight?  Can I peer at the guy hiding around the corner by using my indirect vision?  He is only four feet away from me, after all.  Could I use it to find the safe landing spot on the other side of the tanglesnare briars?

 

  I could certainly do this with a periscope.

 

If I can't do this with indirect on my sight, how do I build a periscope?

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

So what happens if I put Indirect on my sight?

 

To the best of my knowledge, you cannot.  That's what Clairsentience is (or the new "adjacent" adder in 6th edition).

[unclevlad]

It's not allowed.  See The Cost of Standard Senses, 6E1 209.  Last paragraph.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

My apologies-

 

I leave too much out as I _hate_ using this touchscreen /phone combo.  My eyesight started to degrade a bit last year (shortly after turning 61), but it isnt glasses-worthy; it is presbyopia: an age related inability to focus clearly on small things up close.  The remedy is those over-the-counter reading glasses.  I am a +1.25, if anyone is wondering).

 

I lose probably 2 pair a week, because I can _only_ focus on small things within arm's length while wearing them; walking with them on is both nauseating and potentially fatal- I would give a hard read to a spreadsheet, turn around, take two steps, and trip over a cow that I am completely unable to see with the glasses on!

 

So I take them, start doing something else, and suddenly I am handicapped, because I left them them.... Somewhere..... An hour ago.

 

Without them, it is quite difficult to see the touch keyboard on this phone (computer is dying and will no longer recognize this board, so phone it is).  Best part is that my fingers, relative to the infuriating touchpad, are of a size that means I cannot touch _one_ pseudo-key, but must press no less than three and hope autocorrect figures it out (I am currently eyeing a used BlackBerry for work, since it has actual tactile buttons).

 

My autocorrect doesn't speak a word of English.  Seriously.  I cannot overstate the number of times a suggested correction has been not a logical guess pulled from a collection of entered and adjacent keys and run through a likelihood algorithm, but a Korean surname, or something from one of the romance languages.  No amount of erasing and retyping seems to teach it anything, except that I have periodically caught it suggesting that I replace properly-keyed words with some of my more frequent typos..... 

 

For instance, the comma is on the eight aise (seriously?!  What the He'll is an "aise," Autocorrect?  You wouldnt even let me _type that on purpose_, but instead replaced it with "aide" no less than three times!  So the "right side of the keyboard" isnt a real thing, but the "eight side" _is_ real?!)  of the keyboard.  For some time, being a right-handed person, I used my right thumb to hit the space bar.  One of the four miniature keys I hit when I press space with my thick mechanic's right thumb is the comma (the others are B, N, and space).

 

The autocorrect will select the comma _every damned time_.  So I stopped using the right thumb foe the space 'bar,' and began to use my left.  Not only did this not help at all, but now I catch autocorrect suggesting that I comma splice two words instead of putting a space between them.

 

Another problem is its native hatred of the letter P.  I can type a P; I cant type a line of them!  But if I want to tyoe a word _containing_ a P, it will automatically correct that P to an O.  As before, it does that _every damned time_.

 

So there is a _lot_ of going back and doing manual correction for everything before posting it.  ("Oosting it."  I fixed it, but it was there!)  Since I have lost my readers by the time I get to the forums, I miss a lot of the typos, but I try.

 

I would like to ask a favor of the regulars and ask them to xommit this explanation to memory.  Since it took a total of thirty minutes to type and edit this post, I shan't be typing (Oh-ho!  This time it was "ryling"! ) this explanation again any time soon.  I appreciate this small,indulgence more than I can express.

 

These are the reasons I omit considerable context, and convince myself that my meaning is better understood than it actually is  without context: touchscreening it in is too damnably horrible a means of sharinf information or carrying on a conversation!

 

Sincere apologies when I omit too much. 

 

That aside, back to business!

 

In the spirit of all those things such as turning instant change into T-form self-only (which was a rules violation up to- and possibly including?- 6e, but that's where it went) and other sort of "simplifications through the elimination of redundancy" or other conversations about not needing Y because we can do it X--

 

At this point, the tyoing goes so slowly that frustration has stolen from me the turn of phrase I wanted...

 

anyway, it was offered as a thought experiment of sorts: given the senses and the rules, and ignoring all the "can't; musn't; never" mandates that turned me off to 6e during my first read through, is Claisentience even necessary?  Can it be reasonabky replaced with what is already in the Senses rules?

 

and with the "you can't do that" of putting Indirect on Sight, just how does one build a periscope?  I am not spending claisentience-level points on a pair of mirrors and a stick.

 

 

 

 

 

[Grailknight]

A periscope would only require the base level of Clairsentience so 20 points for Sight Group.  That would get you 100 meters at the extreme range and that's more that what's needed. There's even a Limitation (Fixed Perception Point, -1) in the rules that seems tailormade for the build. It only becomes really expensive when you add lots of Senses or want a Mobile Perception Point that can keep pace with a fast moving target

[Christopher R Taylor]

A periscope is a perfect example of the "adjacent" sense modifier.  

 

Quote

This Sense Modifier allows a character to perceive not from where he’s standing, but a point up to 2m away from himself.  (For longer ranges, characters should buy Clairsentience.) It’s primarily used to create devices like periscopes and borescopes, but might also represent a character with eyestalks or the like.

 

Basically it allows you to move the point at which you perceive with to a place as distant as 2m.  So 2m above you, 2m through a substance, etc.

[Duke Bushido]

I was initially just passingly curious, but I have to say with the "indirect is forbidden on senses" and "adjacent sense" is severely limited" and the like, it really seems like these restrictions are the only reason Clairsentience still exits.  Remove the "must not ever" and "no more than 2m" limitations on these advantages and Clairsentience is just redundant, it seems.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think the reason they do that with senses is that they're often really cheap, and since you don't have "vision" as a power (although the book suggests an optional way to buy that) putting modifiers on your eyeballs doesn't really work well.

[unclevlad]

That is it, in a nutshell, I expect.  The basic senses cost 90 points...so what are you gonna do, give everyone 90 more?  That are spent at the start?  It kinda feels like saying every characteristic starts at 0...but requiring all of them to be bought to at least 1....and giving everyone that many more points.  That would be a weird approach to me.  And it feels like a way some people would try to game the system, trying to give back some of the senses for more, direct character points (rather than Complications).  Maybe not all that many, but I think it is a legitimate system concern.

 

Another aspect is that the base senses never cost END...and never should, IMO, as they're passive.  (Maybe barring bizarre aliens or some automata, but those would be few and far between.  And I'd need convincing that it made sense.)  That makes advantages somewhat cheaper, arguably, than they should be, as they never carry the additional END cost.

 

Also, there's a technical aspect.  You'd have to buy any advantages on a sense, as naked advantages, most likely.  Remember the rule:  adders can be active or not at will, but advantages are always active when the power is in use.  UGH!  Not my preference.  

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think the reason they do that with senses is that they're often really cheap, and since you don't have "vision" as a power (although the book suggests an optional way to buy that) putting modifiers on your eyeballs doesn't really work well.

 

The four basic Sense Groups are free and Mental Awareness is only 3 Points. Using them is a 0-phase action and costs 0 END. They are a given in the  costing structure of  all HERO. characters just as starting stats are. Adding exotic senses costs but they are still END free and 0-phase. 

 

Clairsentience isn't a Sense Power but a Power that allows you to use the senses you possess at Range and it's price does track with it's utility. A mirror on a stick to look around corner is cheap. Being able to spy on any location or meeting, undetectably from the safety of your hidden fortress is extremely powerful and the cost reflects that.

 

5 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

That is it, in a nutshell, I expect.  The basic senses cost 90 points...so what are you gonna do, give everyone 90 more?  That are spent at the start?  It kinda feels like saying every characteristic starts at 0...but requiring all of them to be bought to at least 1....and giving everyone that many more points.  That would be a weird approach to me.  And it feels like a way some people would try to game the system, trying to give back some of the senses for more, direct character points (rather than Complications).  Maybe not all that many, but I think it is a legitimate system concern.

 

Another aspect is that the base senses never cost END...and never should, IMO, as they're passive.  (Maybe barring bizarre aliens or some automata, but those would be few and far between.  And I'd need convincing that it made sense.)  That makes advantages somewhat cheaper, arguably, than they should be, as they never carry the additional END cost.

 

Also, there's a technical aspect.  You'd have to buy any advantages on a sense, as naked advantages, most likely.  Remember the rule:  adders can be active or not at will, but advantages are always active when the power is in use.  UGH!  Not my preference.  

 

Added as I typed my last sentence. 🙂

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The four basic Sense Groups are free and Mental Awareness is only 3 Points. Using them is a 0-phase action and costs 0 END. They are a given in the  costing structure of  all HERO. characters just as starting stats are. Adding exotic senses costs but they are still END free and 0-phase. 

 

Sure, but if you were to change the rules to allow, say, indirect to be purchased on sight, then you have to have a cost in order to apply the advantage.  And as you say, most senses other than the 5 you start with are really cheap: "adders" or sense modifiers are that expensive in order to keep you from getting +3 in advantages on your IR sense for +15 points.

[unclevlad]

12 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Sure, but if you were to change the rules to allow, say, indirect to be purchased on sight, then you have to have a cost in order to apply the advantage.  And as you say, most senses other than the 5 you start with are really cheap: "adders" or sense modifiers are that expensive in order to keep you from getting +3 in advantages on your IR sense for +15 points.

 

The workaround would be to make the base senses something like a "package deal power" where the mods that exist already are made explicit adders, and at the end there's a "package discount" that covers the base cost.

 

So now, if you buy new adders (senses) or slap on advantages, they apply to the power as a whole, as with any other power, and the package discount is applied *at the end.*  So you can't put +3 advantages on the IR, it'd have to be on the entire thing...rather more expensive.

 

That said, you COULD put Ranged and Indirect, for example, on Normal Taste or Smell...for dirt cheap.  On Normal Touch, for pretty cheap.  

 

But thinking about this and with the PDF open...there's another wrinkle.  Sight, Hearing, and Touch all have Discriminatory...but a lesser form.  Horrible writing...don't use the same term for 2 different things in the same rules section.  But it makes pricing them...awkward, as they really shouldn't be the full cost.  It is, tho;  the only modifier that's different between Smell/Taste and Touch is Discriminatory, and it's listed as a 5 point difference.

 

As was noted:  senses are really given their own, separate subsystem.  It's VERY easy for players, and it works in MOST cases.  These are highly desirable.  It feels very difficult, if not impossible, to modify the base senses to be more flexible, without losing those aspects. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

As I understand it, sight and touch and hearing are discriminatory, but not analyze.  So you can get quite a bit of information (discern heat and texture with touch, identify items and read with vision, etc)  but analyze would give you much more information like exact temperatures, identify cloth types, etc.  So yeah its not well explained but the rules should presume Discriminatory with senses, and then pay only for the upgrade to analyze to get more info.

[unclevlad]

Not as written.

Per RAW:

The Discriminatory effect provided by the <X> Group is not the full Discriminatory obtained by buying that Sense Modifier, but rather an effect of somewhat cruder degree.

 

and

 

Characters can make Normal <X> (or the entire <X> Sense Group) fully Discriminatory by paying the usual cost.

 

Sight, touch and hearing have a lesser form of Discriminatory.  The book examples:

--hearing...can tell a bird's song from a trumpet;  can't necessarily distinguish between the bird calls of diff species.  Discrim would;  Analyze likely would mean distinguishing between 2 birds of the *same* species.

--Sight's example is bad.  Can tell 2 people apart...but can't tell ethnicity or religion.  Barring specific markers, that's true no matter what.

--Touch isn't a lot better, as it says you can't tell a $1 bill from a $5 bill *by touch*.  DUH!!! I wouldn't expect to, at least not without Analyze.  It's not relief, as on a coin.  

 

That said, it feels like they're seriously splitting hairs where they'd likely be better off NOT doing that, but what they give with Discriminatory is quite a bit.  Their Detect Metals example:  Discrim gives you a pretty accurate general composition, Analyze a *detailed* one, including fairly low-abundance ones.  Not necessarily TINY amounts...from the Wikipedia article, the average composition of granite is

 

SiO2  72.04% (silica)

Al2O3  14.42% (alumina)

K2O  4.12%

Na2O  3.69%

CaO  1.82%

FeO  1.68%

Fe2O3  1.22%

MgO  0.71%

TiO2  0.30%

P2O5  0.12%

MnO  0.05%

 

When you're getting down to the phosphorus and manganese, you might need Microscopic.  Normal air might be worse;  carbon dioxide is 400 parts per million.  Worse:  helium is about 5 parts per million, and methane (fortunately) is about 2 parts per million.

 

Even with purely normal Sight...there's arguably 6 "white metals" in jewelry:  cobalt-chrome, steel, platinum, and silver, and with white gold there's regular white gold (albeit of course, the composition matters), and there's white gold that's been rhodium-plated (pretty common).  (Titanium isn't a white metal, it's gray.)  When they're all polished, to a similar level...even an amateur can distinguish silver.  Clearly, the rhodium plating creates some visual alteration over the typical 75-25 (silver) 18K white gold.  I think someone decently trained can tell many of these apart with at least fair accuracy.  I knew my mother's 2 rings weren't gold...they were platinum.  I'm no expert, either.

 

So why NOT just simplify everyone's lives and just give the 3 senses the full modifier???  Cuz they want Analyze to be expensive.  SILLINESS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah their examples don't work, even an amateur can tell the difference between bird calls.  Our hearing is full discriminatory, our sight, our touch.  Without discrim, touch would only give pressure and possibly temperature extremes.  Discriminatory lets you tell the difference between silk and satin.  We have full discriminatory on our senses, analyze gives superhuman levels of detail.  Just say its the 5/10 point step up instead of requiring discriminatory to be purchased to get the "full effect". 

 

The only reason I can come up with for the "its not really discriminatory, discriminatory" line is because it was deemed that 5 points to be able to tell the difference between three different sparrows seems like too little.  But is it?  I mean, in real play how likely is this to be critical?  Yeah, its a neat ability, but no more useful than absolute range sense or pitch perfect.

 

And as you say, training can get people to really dig into the full potential of their senses to be even more amazingly accurate.

[Ninja-Bear]

I figure the reason you can’t put Indirect for sight is the same reason why you can’t put Range on Strength. 

[Duke Bushido]

8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I figure the reason you can’t put Indirect for sight is the same reason why you can’t put Range on Strength. 

 

Agreed, but in so doing, you create a version of telekinesis that pays for being essentially STR at range.  Simultaneously, "no fine manipulation" becomes a valid limitation.

 

It ia wired what got changed because closer examination shows that X is really just Y, and what did not get changed after meeting the same criteria.

At first I thought "well, maybe they didnt want to fool with legacy powers," but Instant Change was a legacy power replaced with something from much later.

 

We can talk "because it ahould be expensive," but there is no point in that, either: everyone that used to argue that Dex should be expensive applauded the 6e move to everything's-a-dollar for Characteristics, too.

 

If you are a points-must-be-equal person, then it should be hard to justify getting sight, hearing, and the other senses for free anyway.  Given that those senses can be sold back (my character is deaf) they have either a real points value (whether you want that to be true or not) or a Physical Limitation value (if neither, than lacking a sense does not impede, even without coping mechanisms or special powers).

 

Either of those choices provides a points value onto which advantages can be tacked.  They can be naked ans tackes onto nothing up front, but can't be tacked onto senses "because" is nothing but forcing a reason for the existence of other powers or builds.  If the reason for that is "it should be expensive," see the Dex argument above.

 

If That still doesnt hold water for you, then I invite you to re-evaluate the opinions on this side of the "points balance is a myth; points are at best a means of controlling a character's rate of development and a tool,to dorce players to make often-difficult  decisions about that progression" side of the fence.

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

No.

 

The fundamental notion, I suspect, behind the base senses being free has to do with "what is the baseline, 0 points spent, normal human?"  Do you really want to say he's deaf and blind, has 0 in all stats, etc. etc.?  That's highly distorted.

 

"You don't get something for nothing" is a misnomer.  It's more like "you can't claim anything that others don't have, for no points."  "Points must be equal" applies to points spent...not to things established as the baseline. The fact that you can sell back basic stats really has nothing to do with anything...at least in part, because of HOW you sell them back.  As Complications...the means for a reduction from the baseline.

 

Telekinesis is both more and less than "STR at range" similar to how Mental Blast is more than "Blast, AVAD vs. Mental Def."  Clairsentience is expensive, sure...but doing it as its own power generally should make for a more easily defined and balanced power.  Trying to say "oh it's a sense with some Mods and advantages"...tends to be a kludge.  Consider trying to drop Regen, and just use Constant Healing...there's numerous kludges to address, as long as you're actually using RAW.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

17 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

Telekinesis is both more and less than "STR at range" similar to how Mental Blast is more than "Blast, AVAD vs. Mental Def." 

 

 

How so?

 

How are they more than those descriptions?

 

 

[unclevlad]

8 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

How so?

 

How are they more than those descriptions?

 

 

 

The advantage of STR at range would be that you're starting from a higher baseline, and that you can increase STR by multiple means.  This lets you play some fairly abusive END games.  Also, the cost for Reduced END is based on the END for the base STR.  Yes, you have to account for the increased END, but 30 STR, usable at range, 1/2 END would be 30 + 15 + 7, 52.  30 STR TK, 1/2 END is 45 + 11, 56.  And if you want full manipulation, it's 55 + 14, 69.  NOW we're talking a major point cost difference.  NOTE:  costs are per 6E, just to be clear.  

 

The advantages of TK are multiple:

--Indirect...source is you, but path is any.

--No set origin points.

--effectively infinite extra limbs...not restricted to hands/feet

--aspects of AoE:  while it's not necessarily enforced, trying to lift a car by STR alone is nowhere near as simple as sometimes portrayed.  There are structural issues.  TK can be 'wrapped' over the surface so there's no single stress points.

 

Note that my favorite "HTH" build goes with STR, and Extra Limbs with Stretching.  In 6E, the limbs are a flat 5 points.  Stretching is fairly cheap, and you get several 'free' limitations (no non-combat stretching, limited body parts, and no stretching velo damage are easy;  plus, to be seriously EVIL, you can buy additional STR, only with extra limbs.  This also gives you attacks within your Stretching range...with no range mods.  

[Chris Goodwin]

I'm starting to come around to an idea that things that can be done as... I don't want to say builds of another Power or game element, but... equivalent functionality, maybe?  Don't necessarily have to be forced into builds based on the other thing, but should definitely have similar costs, maybe costs derived from the other thing. 

 

I'll use an example that I know Hugh is familiar with.  In SETAC, the Weapon Master talent was taken apart, broken down to "pieces parts", and recosted.  What was settled on was a cost based on using two Combat Skill Levels to add one DC to an attack. 

 

That could and should be applied in other areas of the system.  I've been thinking about Regeneration and Healing; in 5th edition, Regeneration was specifically a build of Healing that relied on handwavium.  5th edition, revised, added a game element that would have eliminated the need for handwavium, to wit the "reset time" reduction, but that was never reimplemented into Regeneration. 

 

My thinking in terms of both is that if someone can recover 1 BODY per time period on the Time Chart, that ability ought to cost pretty close to the same amount whether it's arrived at via Healing or Regeneration.  That's not to say that Regeneration should be a Healing build, but I am saying that Regenerating 1 BODY per Hour ought to have a similar cost to Healing 1 BODY per Hour.  If normal sight has an effective cost of 30 points, because the lack of it is worth 30 points (as good a rationale as any, for me), and we have multiple levels of an Indirect Advantage, then Clairsentience with normal sight ought to cost close to the same amount as it would cost to add Indirect functionality, and whatever other functionality Clairvoyance has that normal sight doesn't.  

 

In first-gen Champions, if you took 10 STR, and applied Ranged (+1/2) and No Figured Characteristics (-1/2), you got a net 10 points for 10 STR.  Probably not coincidentally, Telekinesis had a cost of 1 point per point of telekinetic STR.  The functionality wasn't the same, because Telekinesis wasn't a STR build, but the cost was deemed to be close enough.  As of 6th edition, because of various changes, the cost of 10 STR Telekinesis is 15 points, which is close to what you would spend on 10 STR, Ranged. 

 

I hope this makes sense.

[megaplayboy]

So far, I've seen Teleport, Tunneling and Desolid suggested as approaches.  For a lesser version of this ability, I'd suggest the Environmental movement perk/skill, eliminating movement and combat penalties for fighting and moving through thick brush and undergrowth.  

Another way to do this is a boost to STR to enable "casual STR" movement through barriers and entangles weaker than the results of your casual STR damage roll.  That's probably something like a -1 1/2 limitation on the extra STR, and with some additional spell limitations, maybe you get 4 STR per point of spell.  +80 STR would get you through almost any woodland barrier, even using your casual STR score against the barrier or entangle.  You don't run into the restrictions or quirks of TP, Tunneling or Desol this way.  

[Hugh Neilson]

May as well cover the derail.  In 6e, lack of a sense is, by RAW, not a physical complication.  See 6e Vol 1 P209.  Sight is worth 35 points.

 

The sellback was implemented some editions back to avoid the "Daredevil Conundrum".  A character who lacked normal senses and compensated with Enhanced Senses might spend 50 points, use 50 points of Disadvantages (pre-complications) and end up functionally equivalent to a character who spent no points.  That meant the character had 50 points less to spend than one who just relied on normal senses.

 

Chris' explanation above matches my game philosophy.  The costing should align if you can build the same game effect multiple ways. If one approach costs markedly wrong, then either the cheap or expensive approach is mis-costed.

 

Put another way, there should not be traps in the system where the player can overspend on an ability.  I flash back on 5e discussions of "trained normals".  Well, if that's your concept, buy a 20 DEX and a 4 SPD and make up for it with skill levels, combat levels and lightning reflexes.  Now limp along and wish you had chosen a concept that was not a normal buman and could build an efficient high CV character by buying more DEX like everyone else did.