Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

[devlin1]

So last night, Ogre's trying to demolish a building. I hit him with a BOECV Entangle with all the usual bells and whistles, and he's stopped in his tracks. His puny EGO prevents him from overcoming the Entangle's 4 BODY and breaking loose before the authorities can see to him. Yes, yes, it was undeniably clever (and really my only option, since he'd just knocked me out by throwing me through a door, a car, and a fruit stand), but it got me to thinking.

 

Can he ever get out of this?

 

Barring GM fiat, plot device, or some other deus ex machina, can the weak-willed ever break free of a BOECV Entangle?

[austenandrews]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Someone else (a mentalist, magician, etc.) can help him get out. Or he can attempt an extreme Push. As a GM I would give any character a chance to break loose over time.

 

Not really different from a regular Entangle, when you get down to it. Slap a self-adhering net or an energy glob around John Q. Mentalist and he'll starve to death without help.

 

-AA

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

That's pretty much what I thought, but... man. Seems pretty powerful for a 2d6 BOECV Entangle. Complicating matters further in this instance is the fact that Ogre takes 2x Effect from Mental Powers, but I digress.

[Supreme]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

That's pretty much what I thought' date=' but... man. Seems pretty powerful for a 2d6 BOECV Entangle. Complicating matters further in this instance is the fact that Ogre takes 2x Effect from Mental Powers, but I digress.[/quote']

Ogre's low EGO is a really significant weakness. Any character with a significant weakness can be completely neutralized by a 10 or 20 point power. It's just basic strategy.

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Ogre's low EGO is a really significant weakness. Any character with a significant weakness can be completely neutralized by a 10 or 20 point power. It's just basic strategy.

I guess that's true. If you're going to go with a low EGO and a Vulnerability to Mental Attacks, that's what you get. I just... I dunno. There's something about walking up to Ogre and taking him out with a mere touch of my character's hand that strikes me as oddly anticlimactic. "RAARGH!! OGRE SMASH!! OGRE-- *grk*."

 

Still, better than being thrown through another car.

 

At any rate, my real question is "Can he reasonably get out of it?" and the answer seems to be, as I suspected, "Probably not without help."

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

There's something about walking up to Ogre and taking him out with a mere touch of my character's hand that strikes me as oddly anticlimactic. "RAARGH!! OGRE SMASH!! OGRE-- *grk*."

To me, it doesn't sound anti-climactic so much as highly appropriate. Ogre is a perfect example of the kind of character a "mental paralysis" is designed to deal with.

[Supreme]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

This reminds me of the issue of the Fantastic Four where the FF and the Avengers have to take down Galactus before he eats the world (again). They're hitting G for all their worth and slowly eroding him, but too slowly. Then Dr. Strange walks up and does a little wave of his hand. Galactus screams and collapses. When they ask, Strange replies that he cast a spell which confronted G with a vision of ALL the people he's killed over the ages.

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

To me' date=' it doesn't sound anti-climactic so much as highly appropriate. Ogre is a perfect example of the kind of character a "mental paralysis" is designed to deal with. [/quote']Well, yeah. My character is nigh-indestructible. I mean, he can be injured and knocked out and even killed, but he has Regeneration and Resurrection to deal with that. My first crazed tactic was to turn on four levels of Growth and go toe-to-toe with him, even though I knew quite well there was no way I'd ever best him in a STR vs. STR contest, but I was hoping to get in that BOECV Entangle. So he beats the crap out of me, and I went with Plan B, which was going Invisible and tagging him from behind as he threw cars at police. Why I went HTH with a Brick, I really don't know, but I do enjoy the fact that my character can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.

 

Unlike Ogre's brain.

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

This reminds me of the issue of the Fantastic Four where the FF and the Avengers have to take down Galactus before he eats the world (again). They're hitting G for all their worth and slowly eroding him' date=' but too slowly. Then Dr. Strange walks up and does a little wave of his hand. Galactus screams and collapses. When they ask, Strange replies that he cast a spell which confronted G with a vision of ALL the people he's killed over the ages.[/quote']

That's our Galactus! Will he never learn?

[austenandrews]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

This reminds me of the issue of the Fantastic Four where the FF and the Avengers have to take down Galactus before he eats the world (again). They're hitting G for all their worth and slowly eroding him' date=' but too slowly. Then Dr. Strange walks up and does a little wave of his hand. Galactus screams and collapses. When they ask, Strange replies that he cast a spell which confronted G with a vision of ALL the people he's killed over the ages.[/quote']

Yeah, I got a laugh out of that. The whole issue is the FF and the Avengers hitting Galactus with all their big guns, nickel-and-diming him while he's swatting heroes like flies. Then Dr. Strange turns up, casts one spell and suddenly Galactus is a sucker for the coup-de-grace. I guess that's why he's the Sorcerer Supreme. (Who would win in a battle between Galactus and Dormammu? )

 

For another example, in the first X-Men movie, imagine how easily Professor X would have taken down Toad and Sabretooth if Magneto had not been present. Same idea with Ogre.

 

-AA

[SirViss]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Someone else (a mentalist, magician, etc.) can help him get out. Or he can attempt an extreme Push. As a GM I would give any character a chance to break loose over time.

 

Not really different from a regular Entangle, when you get down to it. Slap a self-adhering net or an energy glob around John Q. Mentalist and he'll starve to death without help.

 

-AA

 

To add to what Austenandrews said here, I once asked Steve if you could use a Haymaker to get out of an Entangle. He replied yes, as long as the GM allows it (and all the other conditions for Haymaker are there). So Ogre could get out eventually if left alone, when the GM deems it dramatically appropriate:

 

Hero, standing infront of Ogre (not noticing the beads of sweat on the Big Guys forehead): "Yessir, Mr. Until Agent, here's Ogre for you all docile and... "

 

Ogre (after FINALLY breaking the entagle): "RAAAAARGH!" «CRASH!» (He still had that car, right?)

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Ogre (after FINALLY breaking the entagle): "RAAAAARGH!" «CRASH!» (He still had that car' date=' right?) [/quote']Maybe, but it's in England, where luxury cars are about as big as shoeboxes, so really, how much damage could it do?

 

At any rate, by then it's someone else's problem. I mean, I'm willing to be a hero, but I'm not going to be a freak about it.

[Blue]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Had this very scenario happen in Scenario 1 of Champions Battlegrounds. He was indeed doomed from when it was put on him. He was carted away by the city's special team for handling super-types, and presumably once he was put in his cell, a mentalist probably cracked the Mental Paralysis for him.

[JDRook]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Had this very scenario happen in Scenario 1 of Champions Battlegrounds. He was indeed doomed from when it was put on him. He was carted away by the city's special team for handling super-types' date=' and presumably once he was put in his cell, a mentalist probably cracked the Mental Paralysis for him.[/quote']

 

I don't know. If I were GMing, I'd probably allow the Entangle to wear down over time, like most continuing Mental Attacks. Say, give him a +1DC (in this case 1/2 D6) for each step down the time chart, but only allow one successful attack per time step. If he made some REALLY lucky rolls, he could break in 5 minutes, but with average rolls he'd probably be stuck for a full day. Of course, I'd probably only keep track of this if the PCs decided to keep him.

 

If this was a PC character, I'd probably allow Pushing and Haymaker attacks. For an NPC, only if I really wanted to have him escape or extend the battle.

[Vondy]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

In combat: he can do a pushed haymakered ego roll, I guess.

 

Out of combat: all powers should have a termination condition, or some way of getting out of it (even transformation has recovery conditions). I would assume the entangle lasts for the duration of the scene.

 

I really don't like BOECV entangles. I find they tend to be abusive, despite their inflated expense. I strongly encourage the use of mind control for this purpose. One Command and required effect (+30) makes an effective mental paralysis very affordable.

 

The character only needs to pay endurance if they want to keep the breakout roll at a decent level - and the mechanical aspects of mind control fit well and address some basic questions. One such question is - will they ever get out? Once the mentalist stops paying endurance its certain they will eventually make a breakout roll.

[Blue]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Well, one of the things about regular entangles is that if you are just trying to break out by STR you can always push. With an EGO based entangle I've allowed characters to push EGO (with an END cost attached), otherwise I can count on everyone entering into an EGO race in order to be certain they can get out of these things.

 

In Ogre's case, he wasn't going to be able to break it.

[Stone]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

I am not a big fan of BOECV entangles myself, but they do serve a useful purpose at times. I am not sure about the Ego haymaker, that opens up a whole different set of problems w/Ego based powers, but I would deffiantly create a set circumstances where the entangled character could break free. This could range from a time limit, range restrictions, aid from another Egoist, etc....

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

What about buying the Entangle with Ablative? Just a thought.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

I've never been very fond of the mental entangle/mental paralysis.

 

It's inherently unbalanced.

 

The standard entangle of N active points has roughly a 50-50 chance of getting blown away with one use of any common attack power of N active points. (energy or physical, normal or killing) Probably 90% of all published enemies or character have that. Maybe some of the martial artists might get hosed a bit, but they typically have high DCVs to avoid getting entangled in the first place.

 

The standard mental entangle of N active points will survive at least one breakout attempt by 90% of the published enemies. I don't have any firm numbers, but I suspect for common values (60AP for example) some number ranging from a large minority to a close majority will not be able to break out of such an entangle without outside assistance, pushing or haymakers.

 

Mental entangles are also no range mod, affect desolid characters more often than not with no extra point costs and probably can't be missile deflected.

 

Martial artists are the most common suckers for mental paralysis, since they typically rely on their DCV for defense. You could paralyze a brick, but chances are, their mentallist will break him out later. You could land a few hits on the frozen brick, but you still have to fight through their defenses. You paralyze a martial artist and you have a good opportunity to lay them out for good. Their mentallist could break them out, but it won't do much good if the poor martial artist is GMO.

 

Even a mediocre tactician can turn a mental entangle into a death sentence. I really dislike these things.

 

$0.02

[nHammer]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

To bring in another comic analogy, this reminds me of an issue of Excalibur. The team was fighting Juggernaut. They could do nothing (poor Capt. Britan). Finally Rachal "Phoenix" Summers shows up. She gets face-to-face with Juggy and says "Guess what I do?" Juggy went "Uh Oh" and passes out. (No he wasn't wearing his helmet.

 

Nothing wrong with it. You have to take the bad guy down as fast as possible.

[nHammer]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

I've never been very fond of the mental entangle/mental paralysis.

 

It's inherently unbalanced.

 

The standard entangle of N active points has roughly a 50-50 chance of getting blown away with one use of any common attack power of N active points. (energy or physical, normal or killing) Probably 90% of all published enemies or character have that. Maybe some of the martial artists might get hosed a bit, but they typically have high DCVs to avoid getting entangled in the first place.

 

The standard mental entangle of N active points will survive at least one breakout attempt by 90% of the published enemies. I don't have any firm numbers, but I suspect for common values (60AP for example) some number ranging from a large minority to a close majority will not be able to break out of such an entangle without outside assistance, pushing or haymakers.

 

Mental entangles are also no range mod, affect desolid characters more often than not with no extra point costs and probably can't be missile deflected.

 

Martial artists are the most common suckers for mental paralysis, since they typically rely on their DCV for defense. You could paralyze a brick, but chances are, their mentallist will break him out later. You could land a few hits on the frozen brick, but you still have to fight through their defenses. You paralyze a martial artist and you have a good opportunity to lay them out for good. Their mentallist could break them out, but it won't do much good if the poor martial artist is GMO.

 

Even a mediocre tactician can turn a mental entangle into a death sentence. I really dislike these things.

 

$0.02

 

 

Some good points here. I recently finished making a character for a new game. The character has a Mental Paralysis attack. When I use the attack I use OCV vs DCV, not ECV, and Mental Defence adds to Ego. I felt it made the attack more acceptable and in line with the character concept.

[austenandrews]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

I believe the power has its place, but it's definitely a "stop sign" construct. You need a darn good reason to have one, and a smart GM will plan his villains accordingly.

 

-AA

[devlin1]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Some good points here. I recently finished making a character for a new game. The character has a Mental Paralysis attack. When I use the attack I use OCV vs DCV' date=' not ECV, and Mental Defence adds to Ego. I felt it made the attack more acceptable and in line with the character concept.[/quote']As it happens, in this particular encounter, my character's BOECV Entangle is No Range and requires a successful HTH attack. It ends up that even a 2d6 BOECV Entangle is somewhere close to 60 AP, and most published characters, IMO, have a fightin' chance of breaking free before too long. Even a 10 EGO character only needs a couple of lucky rolls (i.e., a couple of 6's) to break out of a 2 DEF/2 BODY Entangle.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

As it happens' date=' in this particular encounter, my character's BOECV Entangle is No Range and requires a successful HTH attack. It ends up that even a 2d6 BOECV Entangle is somewhere close to 60 AP, and most published characters, IMO, have a fightin' chance of breaking free before too long. Even a 10 EGO character only needs a couple of lucky rolls (i.e., a couple of 6's) to break out of a 2 DEF/2 BODY Entangle.[/quote']

 

Or he can use a Haymaker. It's not like he's going anywhere anyway. That should break it.

[austenandrews]

Re: Mental Entangles and the Weak-Willed

 

Does a mental Haymaker reduce your DCV or your DECV? Or both?

 

-AA