Oihid

[Kristopher]

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)?

 

 

In the context of this thread, I was thinking of limits on powers and of the exotic weaknesses -- things that put holes in the character that can be exploited in a fight. The most exploitable limitation I've ever put on on of my Champs PC's powers was OIF, and in that campaign the other characters were so full of drama that it never actually came up -- the GM had his hands full. Which was fine by me, since I'd rather just play a competant, professional character and enjoy solving the current mystery/case/dilema when I game.

 

Which doesn't mean I play the same soulless cookie-cutter cardboard character in every game -- but then I don't think characters are made unique and interesting by how they can be screwed over.

 

One of the reasons I don't always get into drama is that the main passtime of drama writers seems to be taking out latent sadism on their characters. Bleah. Whatever. Oh, look, the protagonists are suffering again. **yawn**

 

Maybe that's why I like the Law and Order franchise so much -- it's not focused on tormenting the lead characters in ever single episode, over and over and over again.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

In the context of this thread, I was thinking of limits on powers and of the exotic weaknesses -- things that put holes in the character that can be exploited in a fight. The most exploitable limitation I've ever put on on of my Champs PC's powers was OIF, and in that campaign the other characters were so full of drama that it never actually came up -- the GM had his hands full. Which was fine by me, since I'd rather just play a competant, professional character and enjoy solving the current mystery/case/dilema when I game.

 

Which doesn't mean I play the same soulless cookie-cutter cardboard character in every game -- but then I don't think characters aren't made unique and interesting by how they can be screwed over.

 

One of the reasons I don't always get into drama is that the main passtime of drama writers seems to be taking out latent sadism on their characters. Bleah. Whatever. Oh, look, the protagonists are suffering again. **yawn**

 

Maybe that's why I like the Law and Order franchise so much -- it's not focused on tormenting the lead characters in ever single episode, over and over and over again.

I totally agree. I try never to never lose sight of the fact that the PCs in our Champions campaign are the protagonists. It is in essence their "comic" title. It's called the MidGuard campaign because the individual members of MidGuard are the heroes. Limitations and Disadvantages are (at least theoretically) recurring challenges to overcome to make the story more interesting; not simply bludgeons to constantly beat them down with.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

Point is what' date=' sorry?[/quote']

 

 

The sheer number of rolls bogging down the game. Apparently, you have no problem whatsoever with someone rolling every single phase for a movement power.

 

 

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....

 

 

1) Any character with enough dice or creativity are quite capable of being effective. If they're all based on the same number of points, at least they are all on a level playing field.

 

2) In your opinion.

 

3) Drains and suppresses are a lot more common than getting whacked in your normal ID. And usually you don't have this limitation on your stats.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

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

 

 

Yes they do. Just look at the characters posted on these boards. Many have OIHID on more than half their points. None that I can remember have Act roll on more than half their points.

 

 

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

 

 

Unless of course they're travelling at noncombat speeds and their flight conks out and they slam into a building. Or if they have it on their life support in space...

[Gary]

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.

 

 

Does he have it on his stats? Stats are a huge chunk of a character's points, and something that OIHID is usually placed on whereas something like "not in freezing weather" isn't. And depending on how often I expect "not in freezing weather" to crop up, I might not want a player to take it on all their powers.

[Gary]

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.

 

 

1) Effort Man is spending 30 End a phase to maintain his powers. Somehow I think the limitation is self correcting.

 

2) Archer has the OAF on his attacks. He doesn't have it on his defenses, movements, and stats. If a player came up to me and wanted to play a character with OAF on his attacks, defenses, movements, and stats, I'd tell him to come back with another character. I would flat out forbid it.

 

3) I made no statement about Disads in general other than the fact that they're usually capped. A character with OIHID as a Disad would be just as limited as a character with it as a Limitation, except that he'll be about the same power level as the rest of the party.

[Gary]

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.

 

 

This was already brought up. A character can abort to any action that increases his Defenses or is otherwise "protective". Going from normal to heroic ID definitely qualifies. And per the FAQ, a character can abort to anything that takes 2 phases or less. If it takes 2 phases, the character loses his next 2 phases to abort. If it takes less than 2 phases, the character loses only one phase to abort.

 

So aborting to heroic ID is definitely legal according to the default rules. Which makes OIHID not much of a limitation unless you house rule that you can't abort.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

This was already brought up. A character can abort to any action that increases his Defenses or is otherwise "protective". Going from normal to heroic ID definitely qualifies. And per the FAQ, a character can abort to anything that takes 2 phases or less. If it takes 2 phases, the character loses his next 2 phases to abort. If it takes less than 2 phases, the character loses only one phase to abort.

 

So aborting to heroic ID is definitely legal according to the default rules. Which makes OIHID not much of a limitation unless you house rule that you can't abort.

Per the FAQ:

 

Q: Can a character do anything else in the Full Phase it takes to change identities so he can use powers with the Limitation OIHID?

 

A: No. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a restriction, or any point in specifying that it takes a Full Phase.

 

We're not dealing with "default rules" here; we're dealing with OIHID-specific rules. Per Steve Long it takes a minimum of 1 full Phase to activate any OIHID powers. For a character with SPD 6 that's two seconds (or more), aka two Segments. So yes, technically you could Abort, but the defensive powers you're attempting to activate won't activate until at least your next Phase. That's how I'd interpret it and enforce it in my campaign. That's a pretty good reason not to put all your defenses in OIHID. It's not a good reason to prohibit OIHID in a campaign.

 

Your unfathomable dislike for OIHID is misguided IMHO. It doesn't seem to bother any of the other GMs here, and frankly your incessant carping about how unbalancing OIHID is is starting to wear on my nerves. Particularly since you've artificially enhanced the so-called imbalance by presenting a theoretical model where only the character with OIHID is operating on more Active Points than the other characters. That's not only disingenuous, but it's sophistry. The other characters have exactly the same option to select OIHID (or any other Limitation) as the theoretical character in question. Character design doesn't take place in a vaccuum; it takes place within the framework of a campaign. Are you actually playing in or running a Champions campaign, or is all this folderol just theoretical for you? Is it simply impossible for you to admit you are wrong on this topic?

[OddHat]

Re: Oihid

 

So aborting to heroic ID is definitely legal according to the default rules. Which makes OIHID not much of a limitation unless you house rule that you can't abort.

 

It's not legal according to the OIHID rules, or from a limitation-that-is-not-limiting-is-worth-no-points POV. Enforcing that isn't a case of a house rule, and if it were it would be simpler to use that house rule than restructuring only one limit as a disad while not touching others.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

Per the FAQ:

 

Q: Can a character do anything else in the Full Phase it takes to change identities so he can use powers with the Limitation OIHID?

 

A: No. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a restriction, or any point in specifying that it takes a Full Phase.

 

We're not dealing with "default rules" here; we're dealing with OIHID-specific rules. Per Steve Long it takes a minimum of 1 full Phase to activate any OIHID powers. For a character with SPD 6 that's two seconds (or more), aka two Segments. So yes, technically you could Abort, but the defensive powers you're attempting to activate won't activate until at least your next Phase. That's how I'd interpret it and enforce it in my campaign. That's a pretty good reason not to put all your defenses in OIHID. It's not a good reason to prohibit OIHID in a campaign.

 

Sigh. Obviously you didn't read the FAQ when I posted the first time. Please pay more attention next time.

 

Q: What effect does Extra Time have on a character’s ability to Abort to a power?

 

A: As a default rule, a character can Abort to a power that takes a Full Phase, Delayed Phase, or Extra Segment as normal. He can Abort to a power that takes an Extra Phase, but if so he loses his next two Phases. He cannot Abort to powers that take more Extra Time. The GM can, of course, change this in the interest of common sense, dramatic sense, game balance, or the like.

 

The fact that you have to house rule this away says that even you think OIHID is unbalancing in its current incarnation.

 

 

 

Your unfathomable dislike for OIHID is misguided IMHO. It doesn't seem to bother any of the other GMs here, and frankly your incessant carping about how unbalancing OIHID is is starting to wear on my nerves. Particularly since you've artificially enhanced the so-called imbalance by presenting a theoretical model where only the character with OIHID is operating on more Active Points than the other characters. That's not only disingenuous, but it's sophistry. The other characters have exactly the same option to select OIHID (or any other Limitation) as the theoretical character in question. Character design doesn't take place in a vaccuum; it takes place within the framework of a campaign. Are you actually playing in or running a Champions campaign, or is all this folderol just theoretical for you? Is it simply impossible for you to admit you are wrong on this topic?

 

 

If it's wearing on your nerves, then perhaps it's best if you don't read this thread any further. We wouldn't want to offend your delicate sensibilities would we.

 

The fact that any character has access to something doesn't make it fair or balanced. If a Cosmic VPP had its control cost changed to 0, then every character would still have access to it, but that wouldn't make the new VPP fair or balanced at all.

 

Let's take another example. Would you allow a character who had all his points with an "Not at Night" limitation? 2/3 of the time he'll be terrifyingly powerful and 1/3 of the time, he'll be worthless. This character is exactly the same as the OIHID character except for frequency and the number of points saved.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

The fact that you have to house rule this away says that even you think OIHID is unbalancing in its current incarnation.

No house rule. That's what the rules say, and that's how I'd run it. OIHID is not unbalanced except in your own mind. You've continued to make specious straw man arguments throughout this entire thread despite a dozen other GMs who actually run campaigns telling you you're dead wrong.

 

If it's wearing on your nerves, then perhaps it's best if you don't read this thread any further.

That's the only intelligent remark you've made in this entire thread.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

No house rule. That's what the rules say' date=' and that's how I'd run it. OIHID is not unbalanced except in your own mind. You've continued to make specious straw man arguments throughout this entire thread despite a dozen other GMs who actually run campaigns telling you you're dead wrong.[/quote']

 

 

No, you've ignored the rules yet again after I posted them. Why are you making such specious straw man arguments against what the FAQ actually says?

 

 

That's the only intelligent remark you've made in this entire thread.

 

 

Good riddance.

[OddHat]

Re: Oihid

 

For those interested on Steve Long's take on whether or not OIHID can be aborted to:

 

That’s up to the GM, based on his evaluation of the special effects involved, common sense, dramatic sense, game balance, and similar factors. The rules specify that changing to the alternate identity implicit in OIHID takes a minimum of a Full Phase, but often more. The rules also specify that a character can Abort to an action taking a Full Phase, Extra Phase, or Extra Segment, but not to actions requiring more time.

__________________

(Emphasis mine)

 

So, as it usually does, it comes down to "That's up to the GM." If you as the GM feel that letting someone abort to OIHID is unbalancing, don't let them.

[Gary]

Re: Oihid

 

For those interested on Steve Long's take on whether or not OIHID can be aborted to:

 

(Emphasis mine)

 

So, as it usually does, it comes down to "That's up to the GM." If you as the GM feel that letting someone abort to OIHID is unbalancing, don't let them.

 

 

Of course it's implicit that everything is up to the GM. If a GM feels that anything is unbalancing, he doesn't have to let anyone have it.

 

Of course if we use this answer for everything, all rules discussions would only last for 2 posts.

[OddHat]

Re: Oihid

 

Of course it's implicit that everything is up to the GM. If a GM feels that anything is unbalancing, he doesn't have to let anyone have it.

 

Of course if we use this answer for everything, all rules discussions would only last for 2 posts.

 

And wouldn't that be nice and peaceful?

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Yes they do. Just look at the characters posted on these boards. Many have OIHID on more than half their points. None that I can remember have Act roll on more than half their points.

 

More than half or 300? I think there's a marked difference between 200 and 300 points of such in lims.

 

Regardless, even at 200, I can just say I've never been presented a character as such, but fair enough.

 

Unless of course they're travelling at noncombat speeds and their flight conks out and they slam into a building. Or if they have it on their life support in space...

 

Granted, but neither seems very likely at all.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Does he have it on his stats? Stats are a huge chunk of a character's points' date=' and something that OIHID is usually placed on whereas something like "not in freezing weather" isn't. And depending on how often I expect "not in freezing weather" to crop up, I might not want a player to take it on all their powers.[/quote']

He has a small core not with those on it, but the higher human and greater levels are with that. Technically, I draw the line more around 0 degrees with wind chill and such, as it's "extreme cold" and simply freezing is so common I didn't count that. His basic "self" (the gelatinous slime) and some core survival abilities, which explain his species' going dormant in such weather, are not subject to that, but that's about it.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Per Steve Long it takes a minimum of 1 full Phase to activate any OIHID powers. (snip)

 

I had a player voluntarily submit his character as taking a full turn for no increased value as he considers the 1 phase cheesy. Basically we allowed that his change was incremental and as he was SPD 5 at the time he got a 20% increment of per phase.

 

PS/EDIT - actually in this character's first incarnation I think he had maybe over 50% of his powers on this, to Gary's question to me just above.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

Of course it's implicit that everything is up to the GM. If a GM feels that anything is unbalancing, he doesn't have to let anyone have it.

 

Of course if we use this answer for everything, all rules discussions would only last for 2 posts.

I would point out though the conclusion is not so cut-and-dry as you suggest above.

[Netzilla]

Re: Oihid

 

This was already brought up. A character can abort to any action that increases his Defenses or is otherwise "protective". Going from normal to heroic ID definitely qualifies. And per the FAQ, a character can abort to anything that takes 2 phases or less. If it takes 2 phases, the character loses his next 2 phases to abort. If it takes less than 2 phases, the character loses only one phase to abort.

 

So aborting to heroic ID is definitely legal according to the default rules. Which makes OIHID not much of a limitation unless you house rule that you can't abort.

 

First, as others pointed out, Steve Long ruled that it's something that has to be ruled on as a case-by-case basis taking into account special effects, balance abuses and the such. So, it's not just a hard & fast rule that you automatically can Abort to actions that take more than 0 phases.

 

If a character is built w/ a 1 phase OIHID on his defenses & also has a Speed higher than the campaign average (allowing a relatively quick recovery of the Abort), that should be a warning sign to the GM. If the Speed is equal to or lower than the campaign average or the OIHID takes ore than 1 phase, that Abort is going to be a lot bigger pain.

 

As with many power/advantage/limitation combinations, GM interaction is required. That's hardly unusual or undesired in a system as flexible as Hero.

 

Second, you've not addressed the fact that OIHID has a requirement for there being a way to prevent the change in the first place. This, combined with the character's lack of perfect awareness of all situations, will make Aborting a non-possibility in some cases.

 

So long as the GM is enforcing the rules of OIHID, it will be limiting. The character will occationally have to burn one or more actions to abort to their powers (and only if defensive) and can do absolutely nothing else during that time (no movement, defensive manuevers, etc). In addition, there will be times that the character cannot even abort due to physical inability (he had to place his magic cane in the overhead luggage compartment), simply not being aware of what's going on (failing the Perception Roll to see the hijackers boarding the plane where there's plenty of hostages) and/or role-playing considerations (you can't call down the lightning because you're sitting inside a crowded airplain).

 

Sounds to me like the OIHID character's life can get pretty complicated on occation and those points savings aren't coming free. In fact, in every game I've seen involving OIHID characters in which the GM actually did enforce character's lims, those savings did get "paid" for just as often as anyone else's -1/4 lims.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

Sounds to me like the OIHID character's life can get pretty complicated on occation and those points savings aren't coming free. In fact' date=' in every game I've seen involving OIHID characters in which the GM actually did enforce character's lims, those savings did get "paid" for just as often as anyone else's -1/4 lims.[/quote']That's pretty much it in a nutshell, at least in our campaign. YMMV.

[zornwil]

Re: Oihid

 

I would point out that Gary's examination is good for people who tend to hand out OIHID without thinking, it's a good evaluation of the value proposition and how it can go awry. I think as with other such issues Gary does a service, even if perhaps it's over-stated as an issue.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Oihid

 

Gary has actually raised one valid point in this thread: Having too much of a character's powers with an overall Limitation (such as OAF, Not In Intense Magnetic Fields, Only at Night, OIHID, etc.) is indeed a bad idea. Not only does it make the character potentially unbalanced vis-à-vis his teammates, but on those occasions where his Limitation kicks in he's totally helpless and/or useless. A 350 point PC with OIHID on everything is worth 437 points; but a 350 point character with OIF on everything is worth 525 points. But that's an argument only against putting all of one's eggs in one basket and for maintaining game balance, not against OIHID in and of itself.

 

Dealing with such potential imbalances is part of the GM's job. I wouldn't allow such a character into my campaign, and I suspect Gary wouldn't either if he were running one. So why is this a problem worth 14+ pages of mostly pointless discussion on the boards?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Oihid

 

1) Effort Man is spending 30 End a phase to maintain his powers. Somehow I think the limitation is self correcting.

 

2) Archer has the OAF on his attacks. He doesn't have it on his defenses, movements, and stats. If a player came up to me and wanted to play a character with OAF on his attacks, defenses, movements, and stats, I'd tell him to come back with another character. I would flat out forbid it.

 

3) I made no statement about Disads in general other than the fact that they're usually capped. A character with OIHID as a Disad would be just as limited as a character with it as a Limitation, except that he'll be about the same power level as the rest of the party.

 

But OAF Man and EffortMan are effectively built on 400 points. How is this fair if OIHID Man is based on 350? It seems about as fair as allowing OIHID Man to be based on 400 points when the characters with no limitations are based on 350.

 

I don't agree with your contention regarding OIHID, but even if I did, I would still expect it to be applied consistently.

 

Either it's unfair that limitations allow characters built with more than the "campaign base" [your argument early on] or it isn't.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Oihid

 

Character design doesn't take place in a vaccuum; it takes place within the framework of a campaign. Are you actually playing in or running a Champions campaign' date=' or is all this folderol just theoretical for you? Is it simply impossible for you to admit you are wrong on this topic?[/quote']

 

Can we save this somewhere? This seems a common issue in these threads.

 

Gary, in the intrests of saving bandwidth, how about posting a list of elements you DON'T find hugely unbalancing? It seems likely that would be much shorter BTW, I think you mentioned you're playing in a game now (somewhere in the past 14 pages). Congrats - last time I asked, you said you weren't in a game, unfortunately, so I'm glad you found one.

 

I would suggest, however, that Gary isn't "wrong". It's tough for a subjective opinion to be wrong. Of course, that also means he can't be defined as "right". Gary always seems to have difficulty with the fact his opinions are not universally accepted. Que sera - we all have that issue with some of our opinions.