Extra Mass and Usable With Others

[Edsel]

A player wants to have a movement power that is Usable with  up to 8 others simultaneously.  If he also buys extra mass x2, does that mean that each of the 8 total characters can carry x2 mass?

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yes, whatever the power is built to, when it is bought usable as an attack or usable by others, then whoever is affected by that power gains all the aspects of that power.

[Edsel]

Thanks!  That is what I suspected but I haven't really found a passage in the rules that specifically nailed that down.

[unclevlad]

Be careful that this is legit, and not trying to make an end run on the Extra Mass rules.  There's, I'm pretty sure, only 2 powers that have Extra Mass:  Teleport and XDM.  Extra Mass is an adder...which makes it seriously ugly with Teleport where Big Advantages are *often* applied.  Since they did away with minimum purchases, the adder side can be a huge part of it.  Even if you teleport just yourself and 1 other person, you're getting another Extra Mass.

 

Mind:  I'm not a fan of how expensive Extra Mass becomes.  Some of this is that building powers is limited to a very narrow format.  I'd prefer something like a base 10 points for Standard Range, +5 points per level of MegaScale...BEFORE buying any inches at all.  There's abuses both ways, mind.  If you don't need Extra Mass, then buy something like 5 meters.  Even with +4 in advantages...it's only 25 points.  That's +2 1/4 for MegaScale (10,000 km...planetary), all targets within 10m, and Safe Blind Teleport. Whereas Extra Mass gets to be insanely expensive REALLY fast.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, Edsel said:

Thanks!  That is what I suspected but I haven't really found a passage in the rules that specifically nailed that down.

 

 

I don't know if this is helpful (mainly because I can't remember if it was ever restated in either of the Long editions), but from the earliest days, there has a been a rule that can help you with these cases:

 

A power with an Advantage is not the same power plus a new feature.  It becomes an entirely new power that behaves in a way defined by the core power and the advantages.

 

As an example, an "energy blast" can be defined by any SFX the player wants.  Suppose he picks "fire."  He can define this as a single flame-thrower-esque gout of flame, or a wizardly ball of fire that flies from his hands to the target or a Super Mario bouncing ball of flame or a burst of flame that rises directly from the ground beneath the target (hopefully). 

 

He decides he wishes to take Area of Effect: Cone for this Power.  Now what he has is a cone of flames that originates from the target hex and forward, in an arc, and no matter how he defines it, that is the power:

 

I send a bouncing ball of flame that lands in the target hex and explodes into a cone of flames.

 

I cast a fireball that looks like a dragon made of flames.  It leaps from my palm and into the target hex where it then stops and vomits a cone if fire.

 

I fire a four of flame that hits a target hex at which point it separates into a thousand streamer of fire that ricochet and leap and twist throughout the affected area.

 

No matter how he defines, this is how it will work unless modified by another advantage or limitation.

 

A popular one in my fantasy group for fire spells is the limitation "no range" or "limited range: adjacent hex" to go with a cone of fire.  Thus, the caster creates a cone of fire that starts directly in front of him and fills the cone area.   It doesn't matter if it is a fireball that gets bigger as it moves forward, a thousand jets of flame moving vaguely forward, a literal cone of flame (hello, Dragon!), of if jets of flame erupt from the floor at six-inch intervals all over the affected area.

 

It does not matter what he wants in the moment, his power is not "I can make fire and also in a cone,"  but "I create a some-shaped field of fire."  That is exactly what it does, and that is what it does every time he uses it.

 

The guy on his right creates a stream of flame; that is his magic spell /power.  He creates a cone shaped area full of fire, because that is his magic spell /super power.

 

If you have teleport, you have the power to teleport yourself.  If you have teleport x2 mass, then you have the power to teleport yourself and up to one other you-sized guy; that is your power.  If you make that power Usable By Others, then _that_ is the power they are using: the ability to teleport themselves and up to another him-sized guy worth of mass.

 

 

Now there is also an interesting conversation on just how Usable by Others violates, and always has for most play groups of which I am aware, that very "it becomes a new and unique power" rule because _strictly speaking_, you are building a power that is usable by _others_: a whole new Power.  You need to buy it again without that advantage to use it yourself.

 

I cant remember if 5 or 6 addressed that (only read either once; didn't care for them, so I don't use them), but from the earliest I can recall, that one bit has been kind of been ignored:  well of _course_ I can use it!  I payed for it!

 

True, but you also turned it into a power that _by the rules_ (of the period), isn't available to you anymore.

 

Most folks solved this by making "usable by others" a selective sort of thing you could turn on and off at will; others solved it with semantic games:  fine.  I can let anyone use this power; this time, I am going to give it to me (or the guy I am teleporting). Others solved with Variable Advantage: either it is Usable by others or Zero END; whatever.  A small few solved it with Ultra Slots.

 

I solved it by creating an Advantage Modifier: Selective, that for an additional +1/4 on an advantage, lets you turn an advantage off or on.  Yes, it can on certain advantages seem to provide a lot of utility, but if you charge too much, it is more cost-effective to go with Variable Advantage and give yourself access to the whole catalogue.

 

Still, the largest majority solves it by just selectively ignoring the "becomes a new power that works this way every single time" rule as it applied to Usable By Others and Usable as Attack.

 

And dont ger me started on the implications for "usable as some other kind of movement" horse crap.

 

 

[unclevlad]

6E helps and hurts here, I think.

 

Advantages on a power are NOT optional.  If you have MegaScale on your teleport, it always takes the extra phase, even if you define your scale as 1m = 1m.  In that sense, that's where you get what you were talking about, Duke.

 

Unfortunately...this is NOT true for Adders.  The use (and cost) of an Adder is optional.  If you have 15m of Flight and x4 NC for a total of 25, your combat flight is still only 1 END. That said:  it's still atomic from the standpoint of a slot cost or points allocation in a framework.

 

UBO is a complete, utter MESS...because in 6E there are 4 separate versions.  UBO...the other guy can, you can't.  Usable Simultaneously, you both can use it.  Usable Nearby is weird...the clear basis is Invisibility, 10' Radius.  And there's Usable as Attack, which is the only one that can be used against someone...the recipients don't have to be willing.  None of these, per se, break the central rule.  Everyone is getting a direct copy of the power involved, with all of its defined parameters.  UBO says "target is Not Me, but must be willing."  US and UN is "target is me, and everyone very close by me."  UAA is also "target is Not Me and does not have to like it!"  

 

Note that there's a potential out...naked advantages.  A naked advantage is a separate power, tied the an existing power.  So you can buy a 12d6 Blast, then buy AoE Cone, to get "I blast fire, which I can form into a cone."  The biggest limitation here is that Naked Advantage is a Special Power, and normally therefore can't be bought in a framework.  

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, Vlad.

 

Yes, that sounds like a hot mess.

 

On the other hand, it shows an attempt to address the issue, and that is something.  You have to start somewhere, after all.

 

 

[unclevlad]

Well, that and they threw in multiple options on top of that.  Who pays the END?  Who has control?  Can the power be withdrawn...that's separate from who has control.  OH...and there's the whole Differing Modifiers...so the modifiers that apply to YOU, don't necessarily apply to the power's recipient.  They can have different ones.  AGH!!!!  The write-up in 6E1 runs 7 pages of brain-numbing text.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Well, that and they threw in multiple options on top of that.  Who pays the END?  Who has control?

 

Yes, sixth edition put a lot more clarifying modifiers on it, which helps answer questions like "can I use the power as well."  Does it make things a bit more messy and use up a lot of territory in the book?  Yeah but its very useful to build just that right ability.

[Cloppy Clip]

The UOO pages can be intimidating, and I've gotten tripped up by them more than a few times, but I feel like if you're going to have a game that aims to be as comprehensive as HERO does then this level of excruciating detail is part and parcel of that. The different components of UOO do make a difference to how the power would work, so I feel like they're pages worth having and clarifications worth making, even if they can fry my little brain at times.