Oihid

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

Hardly. (See? I can do simple, meaningless "answers" too...)

 

Nope...

 

 

So why have disadvantages at all? Why not just fiat them away? It's not like you NEED them or anything...

 

Do you really think that the disadvantage system is worthless?

 

 

I view the Disad system as a guideline. In my campaigns, I just give the players their starting points and allow them to pick whatever Disads fit their conception. Players usually select 100-150 pts of Disads voluntarily. Of course this only works with reasonably mature players and I wouldn't suggest it as a general change to the Hero System.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

What he said "Okay... howbout this. I roll once per phase for everything?".

Or if he had like a randomizer that he could just press a button and tell whether he'd blown the activation, thereby costing no time...

 

Or, or, or... or... or it was a PBeM/PBB game and time wasn't an issue in that sense?

 

 

Every phase that the character flies?

 

 

Actually, depends on the Mentalist... if they are powerful, then they can easily be more dangerous than 350 would indicate. And if their defenses are "Psionic" (I move myself out of the way by reading their minds)... the Automaton CAN make them as good as 50-75pts.

 

Or the 'desolid AND ATTACK!' characters, who fold like a paper umbrella vs the SFX that hits them.

 

Or an EC based character, who when hit with almost any kind of drain goes sraight to "my powers, my precious powers..."

 

or, or, or...

 

 

If you're referring to Sniper type mentallists with telescopic n-ray vision and tunnelling, then I concede that the rules can be easily abused in other ways than just OIHID. However, this type of character wouldn't be allowed in most campaigns.

 

Similarly with Desolid characters with Affects Solid World on most of their powers. With the right set of advantages, they could be lethal. But most GMs wouldn't allow this type of characters.

 

And while I dislike ECs, I've come to the conclusion that they're sorta necessary to balance out ultra cheap Str and Dex. I would personally prefer to replace the EC system with a -1/4 "drain one drain all" limitation.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Oihid

 

Every phase that the character flies?

[/Quote]

 

Point is what, sorry?

 

If you're referring to Sniper type mentallists with telescopic n-ray vision and tunnelling, then I concede that the rules can be easily abused in other ways than just OIHID. However, this type of character wouldn't be allowed in most campaigns.

 

Similarly with Desolid characters with Affects Solid World on most of their powers. With the right set of advantages, they could be lethal. But most GMs wouldn't allow this type of characters.

 

And while I dislike ECs, I've come to the conclusion that they're sorta necessary to balance out ultra cheap Str and Dex. I would personally prefer to replace the EC system with a -1/4 "drain one drain all" limitation.

 

1) Mentalists with enough dice or creativity are quite able to be more effective than non-Mental powers based characters. It's the whole "Mind Control Is Godly" problem... (and yes, a good GM stops this from being a problem... much like they stop OIHID from being a problem...)

 

2) Desolid for-ever characters can be fine.

 

3) So you support THAT -1/4 limitation universally applied to a character? How is that any different from OIHID _as you claim it to be_. How often do characters get powers drained/suppressed? How much will a player whine when they lose all their powers to that? How useless do they become?

 

Hypocrisy....

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Oihid

 

I view the Disad system as a guideline. In my campaigns, I just give the players their starting points and allow them to pick whatever Disads fit their conception. Players usually select 100-150 pts of Disads voluntarily. Of course this only works with reasonably mature players and I wouldn't suggest it as a general change to the Hero System.

 

So, why make it be 50pts? Why not make it 10, or 20, or even 0 if they're not required? After all, it doesn't matter...

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of ASL. It's true that tanks have fixed to kill numbers' date=' but characters in Champions have fixed numbers of dice. Having a 20 to kill number is no different than a character having 12d6 EB. Both have random results depending on the defenses of the opponent.[/quote']That's true only so far as it applies to straight head-to-head combat. Role playing is a lot more than just comparing defenses versus attacks. When an infantry half-squad in ASL can martial throw a King Tiger or shut off its engine remotely, sneak into the enemy base, and persuade the megavillain's beautiful mistress to deactivate the doomsday device then we'll be looking at parity. And can tanks Dive for Cover to avoid attacks?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Oihid

 

You are kidding right???

 

You’re not going to deny that its ALL about the system are you?

 

The only real reason that we actually play these games is so that we may better understand the elegance of the rules.

 

Sorry. Momentary abberation. I'm OK now...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Oihid

 

No, but I expect the guys with CvK to not say "Okay, I kill him" and not expect ME to stop them.

 

Or the guy with Social Limitation: to make an ass of himself in a social situation without prompting.

 

Or the guy with Activation to, you know, _actually roll_.

 

Well that is my point. YOU will stop them because you are the GM. Enforcement of disadvantages and limitations is the responsibilty of the GM, IMO. A decent, fair minded player will self police. If you find any decent, fair minded players, please let me know.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Oihid

 

Yes, I would have a problem with the 300 ps on Act 15-. If nothing more than the sheer number of rolls that would bog down the game.

 

Just roll once in the morning, it is the same difference, mathematically. Makes a big difference in terms of game play though.

 

"Sorry Gonadophage, can't fight you today, I'm feeling normal...er, Gonadophage...OH MOTHER OF MERCY..."

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Oihid

 

Well that is my point. YOU will stop them because you are the GM. Enforcement of disadvantages and limitations is the responsibilty of the GM' date=' IMO. A decent, fair minded player will self police. If you find any decent, fair minded players, please let me know.[/quote']

 

No, in those cases, I will _prompt_ them. Much like I would with OIHID (Dude... you have TWO lives here...).

 

CvK - I will not say 'you don't kill him'. I will just remind him he has a CvK if he forgets. And then delete it from his CS if he doesn't obey it.

 

Assmaking - "You're being too suave... stop it". Or I will delete if from their CS.

 

Activation - "Roll the bloody dice..." - Or I will delete it.

 

 

And once deleted, the points come straight out of whatever hurts the most.

 

But I would never FORCE them to act in a particular way... and if they take OIHID and then decide that they don't want to actually play it, well, that OIHID takes a leave of absence...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Oihid

 

No, in those cases, I will _prompt_ them. Much like I would with OIHID (Dude... you have TWO lives here...).

 

CvK - I will not say 'you don't kill him'. I will just remind him he has a CvK if he forgets. And then delete it from his CS if he doesn't obey it.

 

Assmaking - "You're being too suave... stop it". Or I will delete if from their CS.

 

Activation - "Roll the bloody dice..." - Or I will delete it.

 

 

And once deleted, the points come straight out of whatever hurts the most.

 

But I would never FORCE them to act in a particular way... and if they take OIHID and then decide that they don't want to actually play it, well, that OIHID takes a leave of absence...

 

I'd be inclined to force a character to comply with limitations and disadvantages unless they either had the points to buy them off then and there, or take out a points mortgage to do so.

 

Whatever methodology you employ though, you are taking enforcement action, which is right and proper.

[proditor]

Re: Oihid

 

I have a couple of OIHID PC's in my main group, and so far, they have "paid" for every point saved on it. Both of them have been in situations where they weren't all juiced up and ready to rock. Heck, the brick almost died from an attack that his powered form would have laughed at.

 

I don't have a problem with OIHID, to me it's just another element that requires a chat between the GM and the players during character creation. I have a huge advantage here, and I know it, because I taught my group how to make characters so it's pretty rare that I see a construct that I have to be stern about. We all share pretty similar outlooks on how to make a PC, and we all actually like RPing out our disads, whether power modifiers or actual Disadvantages.

 

The limitation works for me and my group, and it allows for some of the concepts we wanted without doing funky things with Multiform.

[Kristopher]

Re: Oihid

 

He'll have a few failures, but he will also _always_ have most of his powers.

 

 

 

Same character with less disadvantages? Going to have less hooks and quirks. Assuming same player, going to be more boring.

 

I'm always bemused by the notion that a character has to "gimp up" in order to qualify as interesting and playable.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

It seems to me that this is one of the most abused limitations around. (snip)

 

In my experience, mature roleplayers use this only as appropriate. I don't think I've ever seen a problem with it, and it's relatively rarely used. Where people have used it, they seem to have good ideas that work - such as the old build of one PC, in his Troll guise, it took him about a Turn to transform to hero ID, representing interesting problems/situations.

 

COULD it be abused, of course, but I think a quick visit to the boards here would give plenty of commentary for any GM.

 

In practice, I've seen other Lims way more abused or at least possibly so.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

You just answered your own question. Hundreds of points as a limitation effectively increases the characters power level by hundreds of points. Hundreds of points as a Disad is capped, and usually just means that the character has to take fewer other Disads.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess in my mind, I have a philosophical problem with a character who's effectively 400-450 pts 95% of the time, and 50-100 pts the other 5% of the time.

As GM, isn't it your responsibility to see to it that it iis not 5%?

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

In actual practice' date=' nobody puts activation roll on that many points of abilities.[/quote']

 

In actual practice, nobody puts OIHID on that many points of abilities.

 

Putting Activation Rolls on your defenses or movements is just stupid. A character gets hit hundreds of times in his adventuring career. If he has no defenses 5% of the time, he'll die just from normal adventuring. Not to mention how much it would bog the game down from the player making 5 rolls per phase.

 

Actually, I've seen this. The PC isn't "dead", they just get knocked out of the combat and probably wounded.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

If you did the non-persistent OIHID, the character couldn't maintain a secret ID.

 

If the GM is willing to work at it, he can make anything balanced. At a certain point though, I notice "limitation burnout", where you have 6 characters all with 150 pts of Disads and hundreds of points of powers with some sort of limitations. It's almost impossible for a GM to exploit those limitations to an appropriate degree. In practice, a lot of stuff slides through.

I somewhat agree with this, Gary, at least if we go with "disad must hurt". I find it easier not to make players create 150 points of disads.

 

However, see also http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=416793&postcount=1 which I think counters that disads "must hurt" yet works in a way I find is precisely how HERO has touted actual disads in characters created.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Now to add something more original, though I stand by my other posts...

 

One thing I've not seen said in this thread, is that it's not even about frequency of occurrence...it's about criticality.

 

I have a player with a -1/4 "not in cold (freezing) weather" on lots of powers. I don't know if it comes into play 1 in 4 sessions. I care that it has a corresponding magnitude of effect. The last few sessions it hasn't come into play. But now it's winter and will come into play more frequently. And worse, right now he's figuring out how to deal with the fact they're about to enter into possibly-mortal combat with Magneto, probabably (Dark and mega-powerful) Phoenix, possibly Vision (in my world a sort of hybrid Vision/Mechanon), and in any event a plethora of other bad guys of lesser levels in a battle royale that will very probably take place above the skies of Manhattan in winter, in the cold.

 

Similarly, other -1/4 lims can happen at very bad times.

 

It's the QUALITY of the employment of the limitation that matters, how it influences game-play and how interesting it gets.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

Now to add something more original, though I stand by my other posts...

 

One thing I've not seen said in this thread, is that it's not even about frequency of occurrence...it's about criticality.

 

I have a player with a -1/4 "not in cold (freezing) weather" on lots of powers. I don't know if it comes into play 1 in 4 sessions. I care that it has a corresponding magnitude of effect. The last few sessions it hasn't come into play. But now it's winter and will come into play more frequently. And worse, right now he's figuring out how to deal with the fact they're about to enter into possibly-mortal combat with Magneto, probabably (Dark and mega-powerful) Phoenix, possibly Vision (in my world a sort of hybrid Vision/Mechanon), and in any event a plethora of other bad guys of lesser levels in a battle royale that will very probably take place above the skies of Manhattan in winter, in the cold.

 

Similarly, other -1/4 lims can happen at very bad times.

 

It's the QUALITY of the employment of the limitation that matters, how it influences game-play and how interesting it gets.

Damn, Zorn, I'd rep you for that if I could. That's a brilliant observation, and I feel stupid for not thinking of that point myself.

 

In any case, kudos for an excellent observation.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Damn, Zorn, I'd rep you for that if I could. That's a brilliant observation, and I feel stupid for not thinking of that point myself.

 

In any case, kudos for an excellent observation.

Thanks, sir, I've enjoyed many of your observations as well.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Oihid

 

Damn, Zorn, I'd rep you for that if I could. That's a brilliant observation, and I feel stupid for not thinking of that point myself.

 

In any case, kudos for an excellent observation.

 

Ditto and Rep'd.

 

[ASIDE: It seems I always want to rep the same person in rapidsuccession, then they fall of the radar for a while.]

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Oihid

 

Getting back to the topic, I find a few things I don't understand about your concerns Gary.

 

You feel a character with 250 points OIHID (200 RP) + 150 unlimited points is a 400 point character. This must, in your view, be curtailed. Let me offer two other sample characters.

 

EffortMan has 150 points which cost double END (-1/2; 100 RP) and unlimited points. Archer has 100 points OAF (-1) and 300 unlimited points. Aren't they also 400 point cyaracters by the same logic?

 

Continuing the analogy, it would be easy to envision EffortMan as instead having the physical limitations "Booster Powers cost double end (frequently; greatly impairing)" and "Spells fail if he can't gesture". Archer could have the Phys Lim "Attack multipower works only if bow and arrows available" (frequently, Greatly impairing).

 

In other words, your logic should, by extension, apply to most or all limitations. They all increase the maximum points the character can have. For that matter, so does selling back characteristics, running, etc. [Why is "Blind" a physical limitation, but "Weak" isn't?]

 

Your argument also seems to imply that disadvantages are somehow less limiting to a character. I suggest that Dr. Chill feels his 2x STUN ands BOD from heat/fire attacks and 3d6 Susc to Intense Heat feels at least as limited battling Firewing as Archer feels without his bow.

[Netzilla]

Re: Oihid

 

I just wanted to address a couple of points that Gary brought up:

 

First, about how long it takes to get into your heroic ID when you have OIHID, the rules say:

 

"the change must take at least a Full Phase, if not longer". (HSR 197)

 

So, changing forms cannot be done as a 0-phase action, nor can the character do anything else while changing forms. The second part came from a ruling by Steve Long found here.

 

As for characters just aborting to their heroic ID:

 

First, if it takes a full phase to complete the transformation. So, even if they do abort, the attack(s) will land well before the transition is complete. Therefore, none of those OIHID defenses will apply (just as if you had a Force Field that took a full phase to turn on). Also, the book also says:

 

"there must be other difficulties or ways to prevent him from changing identities". (HSR 197)

 

So, it might even be physically impossible for the character to change IDs.

 

I didn't recall anyone bringing these two points up, so far (if someone did & I missed it, sorry) but felt they are important things to take into account.

 

It seems to me that if the GM enforces those two aspects of OIHID, the limitation will indeed be limiting. As for how often the GM should do so, the equivalent activation roll is 15-. That's roughly 5%. So, about 5% of the time, any OIHID powers should unavailable. In my oppinion, and I suspect that of several others in this thread, that's not an unreasonable burden to place on the GM.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Oihid

 

I'm always bemused by the notion that a character has to "gimp up" in order to qualify as interesting and playable.

 

"A man is defined by his weaknesses as much as by his strengths".

The most enduring comic book characters have the most interesting weaknesses.

 

Telll me. How interesting is it to read about the guy with no driving motivations (psych), no quirks or foibles (psych), no physical imperfections (phys), no exotic weaknesses (suscept, depend, vuln), no friends or family (DNPC), no enemies or superiors (Hunted/Watched), no bad luck (unluck) and nothing impeding their interactions with others (social)?

 

[Sean Waters]

Re: Oihid

 

"A man is defined by his weaknesses as much as by his strengths".

The most enduring comic book characters have the most interesting weaknesses.

 

Telll me. How interesting is it to read about the guy with no driving motivations (psych), no quirks or foibles (psych), no physical imperfections (phys), no exotic weaknesses (suscept, depend, vuln), no friends or family (DNPC), no enemies or superiors (Hunted/Watched), no bad luck (unluck) and nothing impeding their interactions with others (social)?

 

 

 

...you mean the guy with only 150 points?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Oihid

 

Telll me. How interesting is it to read about the guy with no driving motivations (psych)' date=' no quirks or foibles (psych), no physical imperfections (phys), no exotic weaknesses (suscept, depend, vuln), no friends or family (DNPC), no enemies or superiors (Hunted/Watched), no bad luck (unluck) and nothing impeding their interactions with others (social)?[/quote']

 

An no rogues gallery (Hunteds), or people he cares about (DNPC's). I far more commonly have more potential disad's than I can use than have trouble filling up 150 points.