Power Framework Question

[greypaladin_01]

This is always the juggling act for HERO, allowing for common sense and special effects vs Did-You-Pay-For-It.  

Finding the balance between  "yes that makes sense"  and "no LS: Radiation does not make you immune to Rad Blast" is always a tricky one.   If you give TOO much leniency to Special Effects then points become almost meaningless, but if you are over strict on "did you buy it"  you end up with 2000 point characters where 1500 are spend just on Edge Case powers and abilities that might never see use in game.   Background and Knowledge skills also suffer from this issue I find.

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

STR does add to HKA and HA. That's a legacy thing from 1st through 6th Edition. I haven't seen anything better and since I use doubling and proration for both, I don't encounter any real issues in my mostly Supers games. They're three different powers but even though STR adds to HA and HKA just buying extra HA Or HKA will not let you lift more.

 

HA did not exist in early Champions editions. It grew out of normal damage weapons in Fantasy. It is also easily resolved as limited STR (only to do HTH damage) which also opens the door to "only adds to combat effects" (i.e. a character who punches and shoves harder, holds better in a grapple, disarms more effectively but does not lift heavy objects).

 

"But it goes vs ED".  So what?  AVAD from PD to ED is a +0 advantage.

 

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

And it needs to be that way not for the sake of Supers but all the other genres Hero is good at.  Can you imagine if HKA and HA were separated from STR in a Fantasy setting? Kilmore the 25 STR  barbarian should do more damage than Meeka the 8 STR mage with a sword neither has any skill with.

 

I can imagine added DCs from STR being part of the build of the sword rather than being automatic due to the nature of HKA.  +X DCs, only +1 DC per 5 STR of the wielder in excess of the STR minimum. Another messy element for real weapon builds, but so what?  They are already very messy. Voila - Kilmore does more damage than Meeka. Neither has to pay points for the sword anyway.

 

Shouldn't Kilmore do more damage with a knife than his 13 STR rogue comrade?

 

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

You have to bow to logic here and implement it into your system in a way that doesn't kill game balance.  Hero does that pretty well by keeping the cost of a DC consistent across STR, HA and HKA. The only unfairness is that the free 10 STR benefits some concepts better than others. It could just as easily be fixed by giving the first 2 DC equivalents to any other power but that really makes Character Generation bookkeeping complicated.

 

It's not 2 DCs equivalent. Kilmore's +15 STR does not just enhance his KA damage by another 3 DCs. It also provides numerous other benefits.  Why can't Meeka cast a stronger Magic Missile or Fireball due to her high INT?