Healing with Knockback

[LoneWolf]

Making spells is a great way to learn the system.  I think I speak for everyone on the forums when I say that we will always be ready to lend a hand in helping to create anything someone wants to.  

 

Having prewritten spells is always helpful.   I have often stolen an idea from many different sources.  For me I still want the ability to create my own or to modify them so the fit my ideas.  

 

One bit of advice I would give anyone looking to run Fantasy Hero is to sit down and look the rules over and modify them to fit your setting.   One thing I do is to establish some classes of minds.  The ones I use are Animal, Mortal, Immortal, Construct, and Undead.  Animal is pretty much unchanged.  Mortal is similar to human, Immortal are Angels, Demons, Dragons etc., Construct are golems and Undead should not need any explanation.   
 

[Hugh Neilson]

For someone who has the time and inclination to design a game from scratch, great.

 

Many gamers lack one or both, but might well play a game driven by the Hero engine.

 

Even more might value the transparency to revise or build the occasional construct.

 

Classes of mind aren't really constructed in the system, as they have no point cost (however common or rare, useful or tangential, the ability to affect those specific types of minds may be, compared to other choices).

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Classes of mind aren't really constructed in the system, as they have no point cost

 

That is part of why I house ruled them out of existence.  Well, that and it breaks the system by reversing the proper order: if something is not universally applicable, then its limited, and should be a limitation, not extra cost.  Telepathy just works on minds.  Not working on certain minds is worth a limitation, not an adder.

[unclevlad]

33 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

That is part of why I house ruled them out of existence.  Well, that and it breaks the system by reversing the proper order: if something is not universally applicable, then its limited, and should be a limitation, not extra cost.  Telepathy just works on minds.  Not working on certain minds is worth a limitation, not an adder.

 

That depends on the rules set.  Fantasy Hero, maybe not.  6E?  Classes of mind DO exist...at least for mind control and telepathy.  You get 1 free.  "Universal" here means, you can use it against anyone/anything within that class.

 

By your argument, speaking all languages should be the default, and you get a price break because you can't speak them all.  Hearing...ultrasonic sound is still sound.  But you have to pay extra.  Why?  Because the normal human hearing range doesn't cover the range of all sound wave frequencies.  "Mind" can be treated the same, and sometimes is:

 

"Why can't I read their thoughts?"
"Their minds work on a higher frequency than human minds, so you have to adjust your power to pick them up."  

 

Which can be taken to be a separate class of mind, or some other mechanism, depending on what you think it should cost/how hard it should be.

You're misinterpreting the notion here;  "universality" has a domain of applicability, and it's often not "all things everywhere."

[Christopher R Taylor]

You're not understanding my point about how powers work, but that's okay. Merry Christmas!

[Hugh Neilson]

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

That depends on the rules set.  Fantasy Hero, maybe not.  6E?  Classes of mind DO exist...at least for mind control and telepathy.  You get 1 free.  "Universal" here means, you can use it against anyone/anything within that class.

 

This is the state of the current game rules (at least in Hero 6e - IIRC, a conscious decision was made to drop CoM in Champions Complete).  There needs to be a rule, however. I don't think mental powers that work on humans, animals and Google Home by default would be consistent with the source materials. The rule does not, however, have to be the specific 4 classes of mind set out in 6e.  Those classes also leave gaps, such as automaton undead (they lack Ego, but I don't believe that they are Machines).

 

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

"Mind" can be treated the same, and sometimes is:

 

"Why can't I read their thoughts?"
"Their minds work on a higher frequency than human minds, so you have to adjust your power to pick them up." 

 

That can just as easily be Mental Defenses, requiring the character who has a special resistance to mental powers to pay for that extra resistance, rather than providing it to them by default. 

 

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Which can be taken to be a separate class of mind, or some other mechanism, depending on what you think it should cost/how hard it should be.

 

I see a better case for mental powers being effective, by default, on sentient minds.  That will cover off player characters and NPCs.  Then we are left with other types of minds.  Three that come to mind are animals, machines/computers and the aforementioned Undead.

 

I cannot think of a game where mental powers that affect animals would be as useful as mental powers that affect sentient beings (or where Alien or Animal are as useful as Human), yet we price them the same. Should they be priced differently? Should they be completely separate powers so you don't just tack on a 5 point Adder to get two classes of minds (although an Adder is a nice shortcut to avoid a Mutipower of the various Classes of Minds).  Should the adder be the same for each Class of Minds?

 

Should it even be an Adder? It seems pretty cheap when one already has 60 AP mental attacks to buy those Adders.  In source material, it seems like affecting multiple classes of mind is rare, which suggests this is not an inexpensive tack-on. Every Necromancer would logically tack on "and sentient minds" if it's that cheap. Why limit yourself to computers and electronics?

 

The Machine class is also challenged to deal with sentient AIs, and sentient Undead would create a similar issue.  Do those entities get to choose? Do they have both Classes of Mind by default?  What about a super-evolved animal, or one which has received sentience by some other means?

 

Somehow, we managed for many editions without Classes of Minds. I suspect Mechanon and Firewing lobbied heavily for this rule to get free immunity to most mental powers.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rich McGee]

28 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I cannot think of a game where mental powers that affect animals would be as useful as mental powers that affect sentient beings...

I sure can.  Every single paleolithic game ever, as well as even less historical stuff where cavemen and dinosaurs co-exist.  Pokemon-inspired settings, or similar monster-catching campaigns like that flop of a sequel series Rowling wrote.  Settings where kaiju and similar megafauna are a key element and aren't explicitly immune to mental control.  More exotically, some kind of "after man" setting where the human species has been reduced to a few psychically-powered survivors who can stay alive in a world full of hostile evolved cockroaches or squirrels or rats, etc. - or just an alien world where some shipwrecked colonists have lost a lot of their tech but gained (or had) psionics that let them influence the native fauna.

 

Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign.  

Edited December 26, 2023 by Rich McGee

[Christopher R Taylor]

It doesn't really have to do with what's more effective or not, but rather that powers are blank templates, basic use of an ability, which we use modifiers to specify.  In this case telepathy/mind control/what have you is the ability to use your mind to connect to or manipulate other minds.  Which other minds you define with modifiers; if you cannot contact all minds, then that's a limitation.  Classes of minds is not just a needless complication added in the most recent addition, but it violates the broad simplicity of powers that Hero has always been defined around.  Powers are designed based on their effect, not their target.

[Gauntlet]

Plus, any character can decide what their mind type if based on their character. A character who is a Werebear may state that even though they may act like a human their mind type is animal. I have a character like that, when in human form he has a human brain and when in Bear form, he has an animal brain. Plus, the type of brain has nothing to do with how smart you are or how well you think, it just is a listing of your type of mind.

[Duke Bushido]

On 12/23/2023 at 3:53 AM, Doc Democracy said:

The reason we ask whether HERO is too complicated is because we have more detail to argue about.  I would bet @Duke Bushido would be more than happy delivering this power in his 2nd Edition game. 

 

Okay, it took a while to get to (this time of the year the bulk of my sparse "free time" is spent riding around and finding places where people are out and about with small children and letting them 'catch' Santa Claus running errands, shopping, etc. 

 

Santa season is over (so the beard will get trimmed back to pre-November appearance st some point this week), so I spent some time reading the thread.

 

I want to preface this with an acknowledgement:  as you pointed out, I don't believe anyone looking for advice on this question is still following along as we have gone into and well-being page three at this point.

 

I would also like to acknowledge that I have nothing fresh to add, as others have already suggested the methods I would use.

 

In my own opinion, this is not something that should be built onto the healing power.  Much like vampires and hallowed ground, this is a campaign-specific Disadplication that is mandatory for the undead.

 

The healer is not doing anything at or to the undead.  The undead are suffering the effects of being too near this particular type of magic.

 

This is right up there with monsters taking double damage from Luchadores, I think.

 

To really stretch an example, if we revisit the 'create a large amount of water' discussion of a few days ago:

 

If I can fill a large arena with water, people could drown.  Is it because I bought a second power: Induce Drowning, or is it because some of those people have the Disadplication: 'Can't Swim'?

 

Absolutely no one else in the campaign world is affected this way; only the undead.  They aren't affected this way by anything else; only healing magic (and possibly only Holy healing magic; I don't recall right now).  Everything about this screams Unique Custom Disadplication specifically for the undead.

 

Someone above posted that this should cost a player a large amount of points because of how useful it is, but I found nothing from the OP that suggested it was a particularly high-utility spell:  how common are the undead as opposed to other threats?  Can the spell be used specifically to take advantage of its effects on the undead?  Does it have this effect if absolutely no healing takes place?  That is to say: can I cast it on a healthy, full-strength character and the undead still fall?  If I am doing healing by individual wound, and I have succeeded my casting roll but have not rolled high enough to do additional healing, does it affect the undead?  Can it affect the undead more than once per encounter?

 

There is _nothing_ in this thread _from the original poster_ that gives any hint at how much utility there is to this interesting side-effect has, though there is a _lot_ of interesting conjecture from other folks that _does_ make for interesting reading.

 

Of course, those stipulating that the utility of this side effect means that the price of the spell should be high are looking at only the obverse side of the coin.  The reverse side suggests that a truly crippling Disadplication should reward the undead monster with a lot of points.

 

From only the information given by the OP, though, I find this to be both the most representative of the in-game effect, and the cleanest, simplest, 2e-way of handling it.

 

Still, if the goal is complication for it's own sake, suggesting AoE on a Throw maneuver should liven the conversation right up.   

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[LoneWolf]

Not all healing is the result of divine power/positive energy.   That is the problem with using it as a disadvantage.  Why are zombies knocked back by someone who is using micro TK to reknit the targets flesh together, or an alchemical concoction?   What about a necromancer   that heals by necromantic granting the target powers similar to undead?  

[Duke Bushido]

I am going to go with "undead are affected by healing magic '  is enough, a nd it happens at all because that is how the GM has declared that this is how this world works.  Not everything that flies is a bird; not everything with wings can fly.  That is how our world works.  "Undead physically repelled by healing magic" is at least more consistent than that.

 

 

[sevrick]

12 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

how common are the undead as opposed to other threats?  Can the spell be used specifically to take advantage of its effects on the undead?  Does it have this effect if absolutely no healing takes place?  That is to say: can I cast it on a healthy, full-strength character and the undead still fall?  If I am doing healing by individual wound, and I have succeeded my casting roll but have not rolled high enough to do additional healing, does it affect the undead?  Can it affect the undead more than once per encounter?

A: About as common as your typical Dnd game.

A: I suppose it could but it isnt in the spirit of this ability.

A: Well no because if you aren't healing anyone there is no outpouring of healing energy.

A: Since the amount of healing done is directly proportional to the amount of knockback that would depend.

A: Yes as long as their within the radius of the healing.

 

Somthing I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it ment to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

[Hugh Neilson]

22 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

I sure can.  Every single paleolithic game ever, as well as even less historical stuff where cavemen and dinosaurs co-exist.  Pokemon-inspired settings, or similar monster-catching campaigns like that flop of a sequel series Rowling wrote.  Settings where kaiju and similar megafauna are a key element and aren't explicitly immune to mental control.  More exotically, some kind of "after man" setting where the human species has been reduced to a few psychically-powered survivors who can stay alive in a world full of hostile evolved cockroaches or squirrels or rats, etc. - or just an alien world where some shipwrecked colonists have lost a lot of their tech but gained (or had) psionics that let them influence the native fauna.

 

Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign.  

 

Now we have to assess what type of mind these entities have.  Paleolithic animals and dinosaurs, no issue that they are animals.  Are Pokemon "animals"?  Some Pokemon probably are, but there are also plants, rocks and non-human sentient beings.  What class of mind is a tree? A rock?

 

Are kaiju animals, or something else entirely? Are evolved animals still animals, or are they now sentient so affected like humans, or even some Alien mind form?

 

And, for all of these settings, are these [animals? aliens? whatever class of mind?] the sole, or even most common, encounter?  If I can control Pokemon trainers, do I need to control the Pokemon they command?

 

21 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

It doesn't really have to do with what's more effective or not, but rather that powers are blank templates, basic use of an ability, which we use modifiers to specify.  In this case telepathy/mind control/what have you is the ability to use your mind to connect to or manipulate other minds.  Which other minds you define with modifiers; if you cannot contact all minds, then that's a limitation.  Classes of minds is not just a needless complication added in the most recent addition, but it violates the broad simplicity of powers that Hero has always been defined around.  Powers are designed based on their effect, not their target.

 

Yes and no.  Do mental powers then allow control of a computer or cell phone by default? I'm not sure any earlier edition was ever specific that mental powers worked on cats and dogs, much less bugs and plankton. What about plants?  To assess what mental powers work on, one must first define a "mind". It was, however, generally assumed that all sentient beings, human or alien; biological or electronic (Mechanon) were affected by default, and those who would be harder to target due to their unusual minds took mental defense - they were different, this granted an advantage, so they paid for that advantage.

 

20 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Plus, any character can decide what their mind type if based on their character. A character who is a Werebear may state that even though they may act like a human their mind type is animal. I have a character like that, when in human form he has a human brain and when in Bear form, he has an animal brain. Plus, the type of brain has nothing to do with how smart you are or how well you think, it just is a listing of your type of mind.

 

So I can just define that my Mutant character has an alien mind?  Are autistic people the same as other "humans" from a mental powers perspective?  Sounds like fertile ground for all the players who painstaking defined their Powered Armor and other foci being constructed of sophisticated plastics, ceramics, etc. - we know there must be a Magneto clone out there somewhere.  At least Magneto got a limitation on his powers!

 

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Absolutely no one else in the campaign world is affected this way; only the undead.  They aren't affected this way by anything else; only healing magic (and possibly only Holy healing magic; I don't recall right now).  Everything about this screams Unique Custom Disadplication specifically for the undead.

 

Someone above posted that this should cost a player a large amount of points because of how useful it is, but I found nothing from the OP that suggested it was a particularly high-utility spell:  how common are the undead as opposed to other threats?  Can the spell be used specifically to take advantage of its effects on the undead?  Does it have this effect if absolutely no healing takes place?  That is to say: can I cast it on a healthy, full-strength character and the undead still fall?  If I am doing healing by individual wound, and I have succeeded my casting roll but have not rolled high enough to do additional healing, does it affect the undead?  Can it affect the undead more than once per encounter?

 

There is _nothing_ in this thread _from the original poster_ that gives any hint at how much utility there is to this interesting side-effect has, though there is a _lot_ of interesting conjecture from other folks that _does_ make for interesting reading.

 

The first is an option if we want all Divine Healing to have this added benefit, but not if this spell is unique in the setting - and it sounds like it is intended to be.

 

If it only works on Undead and Demons, I submit that it is less effective than if it also worked on animals, plants, monsters and bandits.  Therefore, it should cost less.  "Works on everyone" is the baseline.

 

As written, I see no reason that casting the spell in an area containing only Undead would cause the spell to fail, so I would answer "YES" to all of your "would it work?" questions.

 

11 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Not all healing is the result of divine power/positive energy.   That is the problem with using it as a disadvantage.  Why are zombies knocked back by someone who is using micro TK to reknit the targets flesh together, or an alchemical concoction?   What about a necromancer   that heals by necromantic granting the target powers similar to undead?  

They aren't because the disadplication is only triggered by Holy Magic Healing.  Just like a character with magnetic TK would set off a susceptibility to Intense Magnetic Fields when TK that's a glowing green energy construct would not.

 

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I am going to go with "undead are affected by healing magic '  is enough, and it happens at all because that is how the GM has declared that this is how this world works.  Not everything that flies is a bird; not everything with wings can fly.  That is how our world works.  "Undead physically repelled by healing magic" is at least more consistent than that.

 

Once the GM declares that this is how the world works, well and good, and the GM defines exactly how it works (maybe even on the fly).

Now, what if a player wants a Healing spell that knocks the Undead back more effectively?

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, sevrick said:

Something I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it meant to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

 

By RAW, Does Knockback "enables an Attack Power that normally doesn’t do Knockback to do Knockback" and Healing is an Adjustment Power, not an Attack Power, so by RAW, this combination does not exist.  Note that Drain is both an Adjustment and an Attack power - Healing is not.

 

If it were, then by RAW, "The attacker should count the Normal Damage BODY on the effect dice (even if the attack doesn’t do BODY damage), then roll normally to determine the Knockback (if any)."  So if the 2d6 Healing roll is a pair of 4s, Healing 4 BOD, the Knockback is 2 - 1 normal BOD for each '4'. 

 

I think I would prefer to double that amount, as Does Knockback generally presumes a 1 DC = 5 points ability.  The actual BOD healed works pretty well for this purpose. But that deviates from RAW, if we assume we are folowing all RAW except for allowing Does Knockback on a non-Attack power.

 

 

[sevrick]

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

By RAW, Does Knockback "enables an Attack Power that normally doesn’t do Knockback to do Knockback" and Healing is an Adjustment Power, not an Attack Power, so by RAW, this combination does not exist.  Note that Drain is both an Adjustment and an Attack power - Healing is not.

 

If it were, then by RAW, "The attacker should count the Normal Damage BODY on the effect dice (even if the attack doesn’t do BODY damage), then roll normally to determine the Knockback (if any)."  So if the 2d6 Healing roll is a pair of 4s, Healing 4 BOD, the Knockback is 2 - 1 normal BOD for each '4'. 

 

I think I would prefer to double that amount, as Does Knockback generally presumes a 1 DC = 5 points ability.  The actual BOD healed works pretty well for this purpose. But that deviates from RAW, if we assume we are folowing all RAW except for allowing Does Knockback on a non-Attack power.

 

 

Then why is it not in the unavailable modifiers list in HD. The question came up when I was building this in HD. In the list of advantages is does Knockback. So is HD wrong?

Edited December 27, 2023 by sevrick

[Rich McGee]

26 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Now we have to assess what type of mind these entities have.

No, we don't.  That's the individual GM's job, and it's specific to the campaign he plans to run.  If he wants kaiju to be a terrifying unstoppable menace they probably aren't controllable at all.  If he wants the PCs and villains to be elite psychics who use kaiju as proxies to fight each other, they certainly are.  If he wants to do a Pokemon arc where some cheating psychic is manipulating tournament betting by mind-controlling the actual Pokemon in the arena that's a very different story than one where psychics (including psychic Pokemon) can mind-slave human beings and make them do whatever they desire - which is going be lot more awful than just throwing Pokemon matches unless the censors get involved.

 

I reiterate my previous point:    Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign. 

[sevrick]

Not sure how the class of minds came into this thread, but has nothing to do with the current topic.

[Duke Bushido]

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

As written,

 

 

Quick pause for clarification:

 

While I was on.... What?  Page elevnty-something?    I was answering the original "how would you do this" question.  Thus, presented write-ups for other answers to the question, etc, were not considered as I did not want to chance being influenced in a direction that I might not have chosen otherwise.

 

Carrying on:

 

 

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I see no reason that casting the spell in an area containing only Undead would cause the spell to fail, so I would answer "YES" to all of your "would it work?" questions.

 

Honestly, when I asked them, I realized anithrr GM decision is needed:  if there is no viable target, does the magic "go off" as normal?

 

Asked another way, can a target a magic missile as nothing in this world?  In DnD (at least as it was when I quit), such a thing wasn't possible.  Cast all you want; without a target, nothing happened.

 

So how does this world work?  If I go through the motions and cast "Mordenkain's Ephemeral Nurse," does it actually happen without the presence of a target wound?  Does the magic "go off?"

 

 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

They aren't because the disadplication is only triggered by Holy Magic Healing. 

 

Exactly.  That is exactly why I asked the questions:  is the use of the healing magic possible if there is nothing to heal?  Using the Disadplication for undead method, the character is _not_ spraying Zom-B-Gone; he is using _nothing_ but healing magic.

 

So the value of the Disadplication here is going to vary depending on how often it is going to be a nuisance (like any other Disadplication).  Interestingly, if the healing magic won't work when there is no one to heal, captured undead characters have an extra motive to attack their captors; that could be fun!  Irrelelavent, but fun. 

 

However, if one insists that this must _must be an expensively-built power laid on top of healing (which I do not), then the cost of this unnecessary build will vary quite a lot-  especially if you are using "L-word" editions-  depending on if this is a side effect of Healing, or if Healing is a side effect of Bowling for Skellies.

 

 

 

 

 

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Once the GM declares that this is how the world works, well and good, and the GM defines exactly how it works (maybe even on the fly).

 

Agreed.

 

 

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Now, what if a player wants a Healing spell that knocks the Undead back more effectively?

 

 

That is a GM question, I am afraid, based on how it works for his world-  including the which way is which:  side effect of healing or side effect of Vampire bashing?  Or something else?

 

 

 

Now me?

 

Lots of choices.  First thing I need to know is the nature of magic-  high-faluting wands shooting rainbows of glory and death; light sabers and casual telekinesis?

 

Magic earthy,  working in small, reliable ways?  Something in between?

 

How long is the campaign expected to run?  What cost ranges do see magic being in?  I.E., how much of a points-suck do I expect to need (if any)?

 

 

And several more-

 

Don't let's all pretend a considerable portion of 'the cost of magic' is just points sucking to keep magical characters on an even keel.  Seen way, way too many magical systems posted over the years and followed way to many conversations to pretend it isnt there.

 

For what it's worth, I find it more honest to put hard caps on magic, but that's not flowery and popular, so we move on a bit more-

 

The options are wide, ranging from adding another power onto the healing, to targeted PSLs to something along the lines of the "naked advantage:"  the naked Disadplication, useable as attack, ranged, area of effect.

 

And everyone's favorite:  T-form.  

 

Yeah, just like every other thread, I lost interest the moment it was mentioned.   

 

 

good night!

 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

29 minutes ago, sevrick said:

Then why is it not in the unavailable modifiers list in HD. The question came up when I was building this in HD. In the list of advantages is does Knockback. So is HD wrong?

 

 

No.  HD is not wrong.

 

There are a lot of preconcieved notions that prejiduce a lot of builds.  

 

Now I might be the more extreme end:  if you can figure out how they would work together, then fine; go for it.  However, I have been ignoring pretty much every rule written from 4e's Dark Champions and on forward ever since, because they seem to have a detrimental effect on my player's fun, which stops about the eigth rules quibble in a single session, whether we chase it down then or not.  I stick with an older rules set because it has a less only-can't-must vibe.

 

Ultimately, if anyone playing HERO tells you that you cant use a particular advantage or limitation with a particular power, remind rhem that a Haymaker is a punch.  You cant have it both ways:  if you see that an unusual modifier does what you want to do, then do it. 

 

When someone tells you that you can't, there are two things you need to two:

 

1) review what it is that modifier does.  Does it do what you want it to do?  Can you figure a way to do it mechanically with the power to which you wish to apply it?

 

2) Determine the odds of the guy disagreeing with you suffering any sort of harm if you so it anyway-  we are all decent people, and don't want to cause any harm to anyone.

 

So, if you can make it work, and it doesn't hurt anyone, then go for it.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, sevrick said:

A: About as common as your typical Dnd game.

A: I suppose it could but it isnt in the spirit of this ability.

A: Well no because if you aren't healing anyone there is no outpouring of healing energy.

A: Since the amount of healing done is directly proportional to the amount of knockback that would depend.

A: Yes as long as their within the radius of the healing.

 

Thanks!

 

 

2 hours ago, sevrick said:

Somthing I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it ment to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

 

 

Well, the Knockback rules require determining the amount of BODY rolled on the damage dice, subtracting a die roll, and comparing it to the target's CON (and Knockback Resistance).

 

I don't know the edition you are using- I assume 6e, and I do not know if it still exists as an option, but Increased Knockback was a thing once that reduced the number of dice subtracted from the BODY damage.  If you want to get real wiggy, crank the price up even more and _add_ a die or two. 

 

 

I have zero doubt you can run with this and make it work.

 

(Count BODY)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Somthing I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it ment to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

 

I did a while back: roll the healing, count the body as if its a normal attack, use that for knockback.  Good luck getting any.

[Doc Democracy]

3 hours ago, sevrick said:

Somthing I find funny, is in all these comments I don't think anyone addressed my original question in how Knockback is supposed to work RAW with healing. Is it ment to be like we are doing it? That is using the body healed to Knockback someone.

 

It has been mentioned a few times, some folk wanting to use the dice rolled to count BODY as if a normal attack, some content to use the BODY healed for knock back purposes.

 

I think for simplicity purposes, you roll the dice, find out how much BODY people will be healed or will be used to determine knock back.

 

Personally, I think that if you create a wave of healing energy, then it will heal and knock back regardless of whether there are people to heal or people to knock back in the affected area.

 

The big takeaway is that it is pretty much a GM call on how they want their game to run.

 

Doc

[sevrick]

Thanks for all the responses. It should be plenty for me to go on.

 

As for the people telling me the mentioned it before, I wasn't sure if it was their own take or if It was RAW.

 

As for the edition I am using 6th Edition, not sure why but there seems to be huge loyal following of 5th edition still. I assumed that 6th edition would be the more refined version, let alone figuring out 4th edition.

 

One other thing if you need to know all these questions how does Steve Long make a book like the Grimoire? He must presuppose a lot of things. For instance I dont like the ridiculous material component cost.

Edited December 27, 2023 by sevrick

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, sevrick said:

Then why is it not in the unavailable modifiers list in HD. The question came up when I was building this in HD. In the list of advantages is does Knockback. So is HD wrong?

 

I can only assume that this is because the HD programmer decided to retain the option for anyone who wanted to GM-Option Healing that does Knockback into the game.  I recall some past discussions where Steve Long was asked about some Hero Designer issue or another, and his response was often that he did not make Hero Designer and, where it contradicts the rule book, it is "wrong" under RAW.

 

2 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

No, we don't.  That's the individual GM's job, and it's specific to the campaign he plans to run.  If he wants kaiju to be a terrifying unstoppable menace they probably aren't controllable at all.  If he wants the PCs and villains to be elite psychics who use kaiju as proxies to fight each other, they certainly are.  If he wants to do a Pokemon arc where some cheating psychic is manipulating tournament betting by mind-controlling the actual Pokemon in the arena that's a very different story than one where psychics (including psychic Pokemon) can mind-slave human beings and make them do whatever they desire - which is going be lot more awful than just throwing Pokemon matches unless the censors get involved.

 

I reiterate my previous point:    Generic point costs are never going to cover all the options when your game engine is trying to be universally useful.  You need to adjust for your campaign. 

 

The "we" to which I refer would be the "we" creating the campaign, which requires buy-in from the players (assuming the GM wishes to run the campaign, not write fan-fiction).  The ability to breathe water may have a range of values as well, depending on whether the game is set in the Sahara Desert, is a globetrotting adventure, is set entirely on the High Seas and in port towns, or is set in undersea Atlantis.  The system still sets a default price assuming a default level of utility.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Quick pause for clarification:

 

While I was on.... What?  Page elevnty-something?    I was answering the original "how would you do this" question.  Thus, presented write-ups for other answers to the question, etc, were not considered as I did not want to chance being influenced in a direction that I might not have chosen otherwise.

 

Bottom of Page 2 of the thread, where Sevrick posted:

 

Quote

 

Ok I think I have a final version:

 

Healing Wave: Healing BODY 2d6, Doesn't Heal Undead and Demons (+0), Knockback doesn't effect non Undead/Demons (+0), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Does Knockback (+1/4), Double Knockback (+1/2) (40 Active Points); Requires A Divine Skill Roll (11- roll; -1/2), Gestures (Requires both hands; -1/2), Incantations (-1/4)

 

Real Cost: 18

End Use: 4

 

Thanks for you help I think this will work for me. If you have any last tips, I think this what I am going with

 

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Honestly, when I asked them, I realized another GM decision is needed:  if there is no viable target, does the magic "go off" as normal?

 

Asked another way, can a target a magic missile as nothing in this world?  In DnD (at least as it was when I quit), such a thing wasn't possible.  Cast all you want; without a target, nothing happened.

 

So how does this world work?  If I go through the motions and cast "Mordenkain's Ephemeral Nurse," does it actually happen without the presence of a target wound?  Does the magic "go off?"

 

Does an NND fail to go off if the target has the required defenses?  Does a Healing spell not manifest if the target is unwounded (or if it rolls too low to Heal further BOD)?  Or does it go off, to no effect (or, in this case, still doing Knockback despite the target being unaffected by the Healing)?  I would say that the spell still activates, and can still inflict Knockback on targets that are not healed (which, based on the w/u of this spell, includes the Undead and Demons, who cannot be Healed but can be knocked back).

 

If I cast a Fireball straight up into the sky, with no one there to hurt, won't it still explode into a burst of flame?  If not, what a magnificent Illusion Detector - "since my Fireball refused to fly forth, there cannot really be a viable target there".

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

No.  HD is not wrong.

 

If "wrong" means "contradicts the RAW", then it is wrong.

 

I will suggest that including an option which is outside the RAW is not "wrong" - no one is forced to use it, and someone wishing to depart from RAW and allow a "Healing that does Knockback" build is spared the hassle of customizing an advantage to do so.

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well, the Knockback rules require determining the amount of BODY rolled on the damage dice, subtracting a die roll, and comparing it to the target's CON (and Knockback Resistance).

 

I don't know the edition you are using- I assume 6e, and I do not know if it still exists as an option, but Increased Knockback was a thing once that reduced the number of dice subtracted from the BODY damage.  If you want to get real wiggy, crank the price up even more and _add_ a die or two. 

 

I don't ever recall CON influencing Knockback, @Duke Bushido.  Maybe you have a cite? If it's unique to 3e (much like growth and shrinking affecting range modifiers instead of DCV), I may have missed it as we went from 2e to 4e.

 

Increased Knockback is now "Double Knockback" and multiplies the BOD roll before subtracting those d6s to determine Knolckback.

 

25 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It has been mentioned a few times, some folk wanting to use the dice rolled to count BODY as if a normal attack, some content to use the BODY healed for knock back purposes.

 

I think for simplicity purposes, you roll the dice, find out how much BODY people will be healed or will be used to determine knock back.

 

Personally, I think that if you create a wave of healing energy, then it will heal and knock back regardless of whether there are people to heal or people to knock back in the affected area.

 

The big takeaway is that it is pretty much a GM call on how they want their game to run.

 

Doc

 

Reading Does Knockback under RAW, you would count the BOD like a normal attack.  But then, RAW would not allow "Does Knockback" on Healing either. Having decided to depart from RAW and allow Does KB on Healing, it is for the GM to assess exactly how that will work.

 

I like the idea of an average roll meaning 2 BOD for KB per 1d6 of Healing, as Healing costs twice as much as Blast. However, simply using the BOD healed is very close (average 1.75/d6 of Healing) and much more elegant. 

23 minutes ago, sevrick said:

One other thing if you need to know all these questions how does Steve Long make a book like the Grimoire? He must presuppose a lot of things. For instance I dont like the ridiculous material component cost.

 

To me, that is a challenge of any Hero System sourcebook.  A lot of assumptions have to be made, including how the magic system works, the campaign norms for DC, Defenses and skill rolls, and so on.