Invulnerability headaches.

[Yamo]

I have come to the conclusion that the inability to do absolutes in HERO is a feature, not a bug.

 

HERO is the ultimate universal RPG. Anything it can't do is a bug. Why have arbitrary limits when heroic fiction often doesn't? I say: Just throw a big stop sign on it and let the GM decide. Invulnerability? Sure! No-miss attacks? Sure! Instant-kill-regardless-of-defenses attacks? Sure! Aborting to attacks? Sure! Throw it all in and let the GMs decide, that's what I say. Empower the gamers, don't hold them back and force lame debates like this where they have to struggle to patch the system to emulate their source material. That's stupid.

 

My two cents, anyway.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Yamo

HERO is the ultimate universal RPG. Anything it can't do is a bug. Why have arbitrary limits when heroic fiction often doesn't? I say: Just throw a big stop sign on it and let the GM decide. Invulnerability? Sure! No-miss attacks? Sure! Instant-kill-regardless-of-defenses attacks? Sure! Aborting to attacks? Sure! Throw it all in and let the GMs decide, that's what I say.

Two things: You'd have a book even bigger than it already is, and all of these things are possible in the system as it stands if you really want them. There's no need for debate, just suggestions on how to do a specific thing.

[Yamo]

all of these things are possible in the system as it stands if you really want them.

 

How, exactly? The way I see it, there's no fully-legal way to do any of those things. Care to give me a case-by-case rundown if you know something about it I don't?

[DoctorItron]

No game system imaginable can do everything. Yeah, we can modify Hero to do invulnerablity. But then how do we deal with the player who wants an "I can instantly kill anything" power"? What happens when a force that can move anything tries to move an immovable object?

 

Hero has a fairly consistent set of rules that are generally predicated on the fact that defenses cost a little less than the attack that they protect against. Determine the maximum possible attack in your game world and make invulnerability cost a little less than that attack.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Yamo

How, exactly? The way I see it, there's no fully-legal way to do any of those things. Care to give me a case-by-case rundown if you know something about it I don't?

Sure.

 

Invulnerability?

 

Typically, Desolidification, but if you have clearly defined limits on how much damage is done in the game you can simply buy enough Defense to counter it. 16 DC limit, 2 levels of AP types of Advantages? Buy 60 DEF, Harden about 30 of it twice, and you are invulnerable.

 

Another way that can be reasonable in some games is to put Limitations on attacks to encourage invulnerable characters. For example, I usually have Killing Attacks in my Superhero games multiply the Stun Multiple by the Body that gets through the defense, allowing someone with around 12 Resistant Defense to be completely invulnerable to pistol fire.

 

The most extreme example that comes to mind would be to have the Limitation on all attacks that they do no damage to someone with the Invulnerable Fringe Benefit.

 

No-miss attacks?

 

The Accurate option of Area Of Effect: Hex does this most of the time. Dive For Cover defends against it, but take a 2 hex radius and it gets a bit harder (you can't go higher than that area normally, but you can waive that restriction, after all).

 

Again, strict limits on DCV can give no-miss, or at least extremely rarely missed, attacks. A DCV upper limit of 15, from all sources, means you just need an OCV of 21, and you have a 17 or less to hit. This isn't even expensive with 2 point levels.

 

Instant-kill-regardless-of-defenses attacks?

 

Make sure everyone is built according to a criteria that allows this. Perhaps everyone has a Vulnerability or Susceptability (or both) to this type of attack, that allows them to be instantly killed by it. Constraining the Body score also helps.

 

For example, I'm building some vampires, Buffy style: with Limitations on Defenses/Body and Disadvantages, they are instantly killed by my Slayer clone on a successful strike with appropriate weapons (wooden stake, slashing weapons) to appropriate locations (heart, neck, respectively). If an individual one is tougher, they get to exceed these restrictions.

 

Abort to an attack?

 

Buy a 12 SPD and a Dexterity (or Lightning Reflexes) higher than anyone else in the game (except someone that has a similar power). Take the difference between your real SPD and Dex and these new scores with the Limitation: Only To Simulate Aborting To Attacks, which I'll call a -1. Again, you have to have a cap on what can normally be bought for DEX, or you'll have someone who goes a bit faster spoiling it. So, you get to go first, hold, and if you need to "abort" you just use your saved action to throw an attack, but otherwise have the same restrictions as Aborting normally does: you don't get to do all the things you could normally in a Phase.

 

Or the GM just says, "For this game you can Abort to attacks" if everyone gets to do it.

[Arthur]

Originally posted by Yamo

HERO is the ultimate universal RPG. Anything it can't do is a bug. Why have arbitrary limits when heroic fiction often doesn't?

 

Really? Where in heroic fiction do you have absolutes?

 

When I was very young, I drew my own comics. I made up my own characters. One character I recall even now was one who could "do anything". Even when my age was in single digits, I quickly realized there was no way to tell a meaningful story.

 

In a point-based system, an infinitely powerful effect would cost an infinite number of points. If you want something like that, you then have to handwave it: "This character is completely invulnerable". It falls outside of any point limit.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Arthur

Really? Where in heroic fiction do you have absolutes?

 

Well, you did take your example too far. Just because someone who can do anything and has no weaknesses isn't a good character doesn't mean that someone with, for instance, absolute invulnerability to harm can't be one. If he's normal otherwise, Entangle him; if he's superstrong, Mind Control him. It's only when there is literally nothing you can do to stop/defend against a character that absolutes become truly unreasonable.

 

But they have to fit the setting, in any event.

 

And while technically there is no cap, and therefore "instant kill" and "total defense" are both infinite point powers, practically that's not true. There is an upper limit on what is reasonable for a setting, and therefore you can plan out absolutes around that limit.

[tesuji]

First, for the most part the "but enough PD/ED" does not cut it. Any number of NNDs such as "meson burst stopped by force fields" would go thru it.

 

Desolid works fine, right up until a affects desolid comes along.

 

Finally...

 

ABSOLUTE does not mean UNBALANCING and certainly does not equate to unplayable or uninteresting or unsuitable for a PC.

 

A character that always hits with a thrown dart (maybe 1d6K) would be not very unbalancing in a full blown supers game (one without the heroic level hit locations in play) because the damage caused would be insignificant to most supers. That absolute would allow some cute trick shots for effect now and again and, under a good GM, on occasion make for clever uses to solve problems, but not be worht infinite points, at least, if you think points matter.

 

A character immune to magic would also not be imbalancing in a campaign of full blown supers where magic is but one of many FX particularly if he has some problem which prevents him from just romping all over mages... like say his superpowers dont work near magic so it boils down to a sort of powerless exhcnage when he and they fight.

 

From my experience, a notion that all absolutes are bad for the game is as unimaginative as it is self-contradictory.

 

Some absolutes are bad. They would be no matter whether they cost 10 points or 50 points or 120 points.

 

The key to balancing an absolute power in a PC or NPC is in the overall aspects of the character which provide other hooks on which he is hung and balance his 500 lb gorilla.

 

just my 2 cents.

[Arthur]

Originally posted by GamePhil

And while technically there is no cap, and therefore "instant kill" and "total defense" are both infinite point powers, practically that's not true. There is an upper limit on what is reasonable for a setting, and therefore you can plan out absolutes around that limit.

 

Sure. I'm just saying there's no UNIVERSAL way to do it. If you have a 250-point Champs game, you can design Carbide the Indestructible Man with PD and ED 60 with 30 of it Resistant. Nothing at that point level is going to get through that. "Invulnerability" has a different value depending on the power level of the campaign.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by tesuji

First, for the most part the "but enough PD/ED" does not cut it. Any number of NNDs such as "meson burst stopped by force fields" would go thru it.

If the GM agrees that the special effect of your invulnerability works against mason bursts, then it will, regardless of what it is purchased as.

 

Desolid works fine, right up until a affects desolid comes along.

See previous post: just don't allow that Advantage. This is a perfectly reasonable restriction for any campaign setting in which some kind of absolute invulnerability is to be allowed.

 

ABSOLUTE does not mean UNBALANCING and certainly does not equate to unplayable or uninteresting or unsuitable for a PC.

Certainly true.

[DoctorItron]

Originally posted by Arthur

Sure. I'm just saying there's no UNIVERSAL way to do it. If you have a 250-point Champs game, you can design Carbide the Indestructible Man with PD and ED 60 with 30 of it Resistant. Nothing at that point level is going to get through that. "Invulnerability" has a different value depending on the power level of the campaign.

 

I think Arthur stated this very well. There's no fair way to establish a fixed point cost for invulnerability. The point cost should be dependent on the maximum possible attack in the campaign.

 

An "invulnerable" cosmic-level superhero can fly through the sun. An "invulnerable" Fantasy Hero character only needs to be able to stop swords, arrows, catapults, etc. The cosmic-level superhero should spend more points on the power, since it stops more damage.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by DoctorItron

An "invulnerable" cosmic-level superhero can fly through the sun.

Did you see Star Heroes damage levels for flying through a star? Scary stuff, that, requiring many more points than any character I've ever seen to buy the Defenses.

 

However, in a Champions game you'd probably have much lower damage for these things.

[Lord Liaden]

I'm curious: Can anyone think of any character from any source material, other than another game system, who has total invulnerability to any single force, no matter how large that force is?

 

Even Captain America's shield has been smashed by cosmic foes a couple of times. Even true immortals like the Olympian gods were wounded in battle in the Iliad. Even pre-Crisis Supergirl was killed by the Anti-Monitor. And even in D&D, I remember a few beings and artifacts of godlike power which could, for example, burn even beings normally "immune" to fire and heat.

 

If the desire is to emulate something in the source material, what is that source material? I'm not sure that the mechanics of another system, which itself takes liberties with the fictional precedents, really should qualify.

 

On a related point: FREd suggests that characters taking Limited Desolid to simulate invulnerability to a single SFX could, with GM permission, waive the requirement that Powers or Strength buy "Affects Solid World". Shouldn't that be enough precedent to allow a waiver on attacks with the "Affects Desolid" Advantage affecting that character? There are enough other things that could damage the character, after all.

[Just A Guy Name]

Hmm. I am thinking of Reflecto (sp?) from the Wildcards series.

I believe he was invulnerable to any direct attack against him. The only way to affect him was with environmental changes. It was thought that you could bury him or otherwise cut off his supply of air. One ace (forget who) defeated him by drawing all the heat out of the area he was in.

[Derek Hiemforth]

One of the problems here is that the very possibility of being immune to "x" varies from game world to game world. For example, in campaign A, all telepathy is based on reception and transmission of a psionic energy. A certain alien race has brains that simply do not emit or register this energy. Therefore this alien race is immune to all telepathy, period. There is no psi in the universe who can possibly affect them, no matter how strong the psi is, because the alien's brains are simply not subject to the only effect that can generate telepathy.

 

In campaign B, a similar psionic energy exists, but so do magic, gods, and so on. Under these conditions, the alien race is immune to "normal" psionic telepathy, but might be affected by magical or divinely-powered telepathy that doesn't rely on the psionic energy.

 

In campaign C, there are no universal rules governing telepathy. Two characters who both seem to be natural telepaths might actually be working their effects in slightly different ways. In this setting, the alien race would probably not be immune to telepathy at all. They would just be resistant to it.

 

Whatever method you prefer for an invulnerability effect, it needs to take this factor into account.

[Arthur]

Originally posted by Just A Guy Name

Hmm. I am thinking of Reflecto (sp?) from the Wildcards series.

I believe he was invulnerable to any direct attack against him. The only way to affect him was with environmental changes. It was thought that you could bury him or otherwise cut off his supply of air. One ace (forget who) defeated him by drawing all the heat out of the area he was in.

 

Bill Lockwood, known as Snotman (the most disgusting joker in Jokertown) until Croyd Crenson manifested a mutated strain of the virus that could affect someone already changed.

 

Snotman became a pure ace with the abilities you described. He dubbed himself The Reflector, although most people kept referring to him as Snotman (to his dismay). He was probably the most powerful ace ever to live, with the possible exception of Fortunato. He was certainly the least vulnerable.

 

He was beaten twice: once by Mr. Gravemold (AKA Black Shadow), an ace with darkness and cold powers (cold = sucking energy OUT of the area) and once by Modular Man who buried him under rubble.

 

That's a good example of a tough character to port over to a game. There are things you can do in literature that don't translate well into a game. His defenses were effectively infinite.

 

Or were they? He survived being hit by a moving train unhurt (I don't think it was made clear how fast the train was moving), but there are more powerful forces than that in the universe. What about a meteor a kilometer in radius? Unknown. What about ground zero at a strategic nuke? Unknown. What about the core of a star? Unknown.

 

He was also shown to be immune to Dr. Tachyon's telepathy. Does that make him immune to every mental power in the universe? The only way to know is to test every single mentalist in the universe. What about deities? (if such exist in your game). What about beings like Q from Star Trek? Who's to say some sufficiently powerful telepath can't bypass his power? This is even fuzzier, since we have no telepaths to reality check..

 

It's the old "irresistible force vs immovable object" debate. It's a paradox because the force would require ALL the energy available in the universe and the object would also require ALL the energy in the universe. "....and God disappeared in a puff of logic" (from the Hitchhiker's Guide series, IIRC).

[Just A Guy Name]

Reflector. Yeah, that's the one. It wasn't wise to refer to him by his old joker name "Snotman", as he had a permanent mad-on due to his treatment before he drew his ace. Another aspect to his ace was the ability to absorb attacks, either giving him the power temporarily (as in Tachyon's psionic 'sleep' command) or boosting his physical strength ( as in the train incident you mention). Don't remember if it was ever made clear how long these enhancements lasted. Your point concerning the limits of his invulnerabilty are well taken, but it remains that he was shown to be immune to every attack made against him in the novels. It might be that a sufficiently large impact might overcome his invulnerability or a powerful mentat like Fortunato or (the thankfully dead) Astronomer might bypass his mental defense, but as it stands, these are merely untestable hypotheses.

[jtelson]

Invulnerability tends to show itself more often in non-super fiction. In the Videssos Cycle there is a spell that makes the recipient immune to damage from normal metal, The Mayor in season 3 Buffy was immune to harm for the period of time before his ascension - Norse and Greek myth both contain heros who are imune to all damage except for one location - I believe there is a Gaellic hero similarly blessed but I can't recall for certain.

I suppose you could simply design the world so that all swords must have the limit will do no damage vs recipiants of spell x or so that anything that can do damage has the limit does not work vs person who has bathed in dragon's blood/dipped in magix river y. That seems a little clunky to me better to have the option for sbsolutes.

[caris]

Originally posted by jtelson

I suppose you could simply design the world so that all swords must have the limit will do no damage vs recipiants of spell x or so that anything that can do damage has the limit does not work vs person who has bathed in dragon's blood/dipped in magix river y. That seems a little clunky to me better to have the option for sbsolutes.

 

I had been thinking about this thread while on vacation this weekend, and was going to post some thing that is relavent to this point. Other than the mention in Desolid there is another place in Fred where it is possible to buy involunerability to certain special effects. Really, isn't all LS:Immunity, Malaria or LS: Immunity, Arsenic, exactly what we are talking about here? A way to completely ignore the damage from a specific special effect? There was a post to Steve about Immunity and building poisons on the board like a year ago, and Steve said that the GM should consider applying a -0 lim to all poisons that they would not effect a character with the correct immunity, if that were not already the case due to them having NND or something similar. I took Steve's answer to imply that the current intention is for most published versions of poisons and diseases to follow that guide line. It would seem that any form of invulnerability is going to have to have a certain amount of the GM applying lims to some powers to make the invulnerability to work.

 

I like the idea of using the -0 lim "does not effect invulnerable entity", because it does clearly put the control over wether or not there is a "true" invulnerability into the hands of the person designing the world, and complete invulnerability even more so than the other stuff in Fred is most definitely not applicable to all settings (side note: the only example from fiction I could think of that would count is Blink from A Spell for Chameleon, The source of Magic, and a few other Xanth novels). Since it is a -0 lim, you don't have to include it in the actual math of any of the powers or equipment just make sure all the players know it is there. Of course, I also make players take a Susceptibility to Cthulu Mythos for no point cost to mimic Sanity Loss, so I'm a big fan of universally applied options to help get the feel right.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by caris

Really, isn't all LS:Immunity, Malaria or LS: Immunity, Arsenic, exactly what we are talking about here? A way to completely ignore the damage from a specific special effect?

That is true, but what you are forgetting is that the reason those immunities work is because the attack is bought as NND. Poison is a KA, NND. Malaria would probably be a Drain, NND. Arsenic would be a KA, NND. If Arsenic man bought has killing attacks as just a plain 4d6 RKA then the immunity to Arsenic would not stop it.

[Just A Guy Name]

Despite the admonition that LS protects only against Change Environment attacks, my own house rule is that LS vs a particular special effect will provide a small bonus to defense, sliding upwards based on total points in LS.

[Supreme]

I suppose that basing this "invulnerability" on desolid is an okay idea. But desolid characters are supposed to buy their powers at +2 to affect the real world. The main problem with this idea, is that HERO is built upon the assumption that there are no infinite abilities. This keeps the game in balance. I realize that people want to simulate things they've seen in comics. That's all fine and good, but just like some books make terrible movies, some comics make terrible games. That's just my Opinion Supreme.

[caris]

Originally posted by Monolith

That is true, but what you are forgetting is that the reason those immunities work is because the attack is bought as NND. Poison is a KA, NND. Malaria would probably be a Drain, NND. Arsenic would be a KA, NND. If Arsenic man bought has killing attacks as just a plain 4d6 RKA then the immunity to Arsenic would not stop it.

 

No, I had not forgotten that, the post to Steve that I referenced specifically addressed building a poison or a disease that wasn't NND. Steve's position was that if a player submitted a poison that wasn't already built for the appropriate LS to give immunity to the poison, the GM should consider applying a -0 lim to enforce it. To me the logical extention of that reasoning is that if a GM wants to have an absolute invulnerability to a specific special effect in his/her campaign than the GM should impose building rules on the attacks of that special effect such as to enable the invulnerability to exist.

[Doc Democracy]

Invulnerability/desolid - new thoughts

 

I've been knocking an idea about in my head for some time and wrote it down for the first time in a discussion on the Usenet today. I thought I'd try ti out here as a more suitable place to get it knocked into (or out of!) shape.

 

I have always been a bit disatisfied with desolid as a power. It is one of the on/off powers in Champions as opposed to others that have more gradual effects. Then there is the problem of using it to model invulnerabilities - it means that the person is vulnerable to affects desolid advantaged attacks and they have to buy affect physical world. There is something wrong.

 

I've been thinking of a different way of buying desolid. I've not thought it through completely - that's why I'm talking to you guys.

 

My idea is that you buy desolid iin stages like everything else. You'd buy 10D6 desolid and this would allow you to avoid damage and walk through walls. If you were walking through a DEF 6 structure then you'd move 4" per phase (10 - 6 = 4). If you were attacked then you'd ignore 10D6 of the attack - so Grond's 16D6 punch would deliver 6D6 damage. Conversely if you attacked you'd reduce your damage by 10D6 as well.

 

This would mostly avoid the need for affects desolid style powers and affects physical world advantages.

 

If you were looking to purchase a invulnerability style power - either because you are so quick you avoid most of the damage or because you are so resilient the damage doesn't affect you then you buy the 10D6 as normal but instead of being able to walk through walls you get to utilise your attacks without ignoring the 10D6.

 

Opinions? Personally I'd be inclined to use this and remove desolid and damage reduction from my campaign.

[Lord Liaden]

What you're describing is similar to how Desolid functioned before the 4th Edition rules - not in how damage was calculated, but in how much material you could pass through. Desolid as of 3E Champions allowed you to move through 1 BODY of matter per phase for every 5 points in the Power. I suppose you could extend that model to the ability to avoid damage; maybe buy Desolid that protects from damage separately, 1D6 protected against for every 5 points. That would allow for limited Invulnerability without the ability to move through objects, or vice versa. I'd have to think about the implications of that one, especially as far as defensive potential and cost.

 

Personally, I'm satisfied with the current model for Desolid; the old model added extra bookkeeping, and I like the "all or nothing" nature of the Power as it is now. I don't have any great conceptual concerns as far as Limited Desolid being used for invulnerabilities, either. FREd already suggests that if the Power is just being used to represent invulnerability to a particular type of attack, the GM can choose to waive the requirement that the character with that ability buy Affects Physical World; to me that provides enough justification to say that Affects Desolid attacks don't have any special damaging ability for the character, either, given that the character can already be damaged normally by so many other things. After all, how often is a character Invulnerable to fire going to run into an opponent with a fire based attack that Affects Desolid?

 

OTOH, fire that Affects Desolid is clearly a special kind of fire.