commonality of unusual defenses

[zornwil]

Re: commonality of unusual defenses

 

The breakout roll, which makes it weak as a combat power, is even more troublesome for non-combat uses. Even against normal humans, it's extremely unlikely to work for longer than a minute, because breakout rolls are so easy. Mind Control really should have more staying power than that.

 

Also, Mind Control should be an effective combat power. Forcing allies to fight each other is a classic use of mind control, but it just doesn't work in HERO, again because breakout rolls are so easy. Give characters plenty of opportunities to resist in combat, but have it waste time as the character struggles against it.

 

As written, Mind Control is too unreliable for combat or non-combat use.

I don't give a Breakout Roll until after someone's been controlled 1 phase. It just seems too unbalanced/unfair the other way, and I am not among those who thinks MC is inherently too powerful at all.

[zornwil]

Re: commonality of unusual defenses

 

Something else to add about the actual topic of the thread...

 

People who've been paying attention to the high-powered characters I've been posting lately may have noticed a lot of things like "Power Defense, Resistant, Hardened" on the character sheets.

 

I guess I'm in a bit of an arms race with the published villains. I read through CKC, and Mystic World, and I see esoteric attack powers and open-ended VPPs often enough that AVLD Does Body Killing Attacks and the like are a legitimate concern. If I'm creating characters for a wider audience (IE, these boards), and I'm going to describe them as being increadibly tough, then they need to be able to survive a few hits from those esoteric attack powers.

Ouch, fortunately I haven't had to deal with that one. In fact Hardened and AP almost never comes up in our campaign. I've had a couple uber-villains who pile on such, but they're really rare.