[Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

[Andrea]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Thanks to everyone... very Enlightning and useful ( hold breath is a good idea to limit desolidification).

Ciao

Andrea

[Lord Liaden]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Does Desolid come with a built in limitation that you must hold your breath while using it?

 

Not as a general necessity for using the Power, no; but the description of Desolidification in the rulebook notes that a Desolid character still has to breathe, and so is affected by circumstances where breathing would be a factor. This includes attacks with the SFX of affecting someone through their breathing, like gasses; and passing through areas/materials where there is no air, such as solid matter.

 

Buying the appropriate Life Support negates these factors, of course.

[Wanderer]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Apart from all the excelent points others have made, I just have to remark that limited Desolid Only To Protect Against Specific SFX (-1) is an excellent (and IMO the simplest and most elegant way in Hero) to construct Absolute Invulnerability Powers vs. specific sources of damage: e.g. Invulnerable To Fire, Magic, or my preferred trademark "only a super can stop a super" Power:

 

Too Good For Conventional Weapons: Desolidification (affected by anything else than conventional weapons), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2); Only To Protect Against Conventional Weapons (-1).

 

1) Optional Modifiers: Persistent (+1/2), Inherent (+1/4); Stops Working If Knocked Out (-1/4), Needs To Be Aware of Attack (-1/4), Always On (-1/2)

 

which may be invaluable to give super settings that "puny humans" feel, and balance supers vs. military weapons and vehicles, without having to buy outrageous amounts of Resistant Defenses.

[MitchellS]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Our GM has been toying with the idea of going back to 1E desolidification where you buy 1 body for 5 points. From that point the power also provides defense to the character by allowing the lowest-rolled d6 to be removed from an attack per 5 points. So if you're hit with a 12d6 attack and have 8 body desolidification you take the damage of the largest 4d6 rolled against your defenses. Damage isn't always going to get through but it does occasionally.

[Vanguard00]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Our GM has been toying with the idea of going back to 1E desolidification where you buy 1 body for 5 points. From that point the power also provides defense to the character by allowing the lowest-rolled d6 to be removed from an attack per 5 points. So if you're hit with a 12d6 attack and have 8 body desolidification you take the damage of the largest 4d6 rolled against your defenses. Damage isn't always going to get through but it does occasionally.

 

Now that is a cool idea.

 

How would you write that up using 5ER rules? Maybe a custom limitation ("Reduces mass incrementally (-1/2)") or something...?

[MitchellS]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Now that is a cool idea.

 

How would you write that up using 5ER rules? Maybe a custom limitation ("Reduces mass incrementally (-1/2)") or something...?

Since "Does not protect against damage" is a -1 limitation I'd assume a -1/2 would work for incremental damage.

[zornwil]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

8 BOD/phase! 8 BOD/phase! Hell, no, 5th Edition, we won't go!

 

 

More than one person earleir brought up the issue of this being an "all or nothing" power. All such powers represent special challenges in HERO. In all seriousness, if someone is having problems with Desol in their campaign, a viable solution in my mind is still to retreat to the prior editions' (I think 3rd and prior, can't recall now if 4th had changed it but I think so) version which allowed one to move only through so many BOD/phase, basically representing just how Desol you were. I believe you bought another BOD you could move through in a phase for each 5 points, the minimum spend was 40 points (8 BDO/phase).

 

Personally as others I've not seen a specific problem with Desol as such, and I do run it as it is supposed to be, as an absolute power. But I think the 5 points per 1 BOD/phase may have been a superior construction, still undecided.

[Lightray]

The old skool version of Desolid allowing you to pass through 8 BODY/Phase lends itself to some odd situations, though.

 

If you're trying to walk through a 20 BODY wall, how far in are you after 1 Phase? Are you far enough "into" the wall that someone with Affects Desolidified can't still attack you?

 

If you're walking through the earth out of an underground complex, do you calculate the average BODY of a hex of dirt to determine the limit on how fast you can move?

 

If you're desolid, and I throw a 10 BODY rock at you, what happens? You're desolid, so you take no damage, but you can't move through it... do you get knockedback by the rock since you can't move through it this Phase? Does the rock stop, because it can't move through you this Phase?

 

It was a weird way to define the power.

[MitchellS]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

If you're trying to walk through a 20 BODY wall' date=' how far in are you after 1 Phase? Are you far enough "into" the wall that someone with Affects Desolidified can't still attack you?[/quote']

Unless the wall is thicker than the character this shouldn't really be an issue. A standard 7" thick wall will probably have the character sticking out the exterior on phase 1, on both sides on phase 2, and on the interior on phase 3 as he finally gets through.

 

If you're walking through the earth out of an underground complex, do you calculate the average BODY of a hex of dirt to determine the limit on how fast you can move?

Yes, you'd just use the hex of dirt as the score for speed.

 

If you're desolid, and I throw a 10 BODY rock at you, what happens? You're desolid, so you take no damage, but you can't move through it... do you get knockedback by the rock since you can't move through it this Phase? Does the rock stop, because it can't move through you this Phase?

The official rule would be the rock hurts you for full damage because you can't phase through it. In our game this would be the point where you'd use our optional damage rules.

[Vanguard00]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Of course, the problem is determining which version you're going to use prior to buying it. It's not fair to have a fully desolid character for 40pts, and a 8 BODY/Phase desolid character for 40 points. I can uses for both, but I'd probably give the latter version the (-1/2) limitation as discussed, making the total cost 26 pts initially (27 if you round up), and each additional BODY at 3pts per (5pts per with the -1/2 limitation attached).

 

Just "thinking out loud", so to speak.

[MitchellS]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

Of course, the problem is determining which version you're going to use prior to buying it. It's not fair to have a fully desolid character for 40pts, and a 8 BODY/Phase desolid character for 40 points. I can uses for both, but I'd probably give the latter version the (-1/2) limitation as discussed, making the total cost 26 pts initially (27 if you round up), and each additional BODY at 3pts per (5pts per with the -1/2 limitation attached).

 

Just "thinking out loud", so to speak.

Yes, you need to decide before the game beings which version of the power you will be using. I'm 99% sure I will be using the "buy the body" version for my new Miami Nights game. I just believe this version offers more playing options.

[zornwil]

Re: [Newbie] Is desolidification truly unbalancing ?

 

I'm really not trying to sell anyone on 8 BOD/phase!

 

As to Lightray's questions, yeah, what MitchellS said, except for the rock and damage - I would base on SFX (not saying MitchellS wouldn't, either), and there'd be primarily 2 ways I see it happening: 1) the player is "caught" in 1/5 ((10-8)/10) of the rock and travels with it, no damage but he's certainly inconvenienced - if the rock is travelling so far or slow that the character can move while it's in motion I'd allow him to "jump" out of it as there's only 2 BOD remaining and he's got 8 to move in; 2) the player is damaged as MitchellS indicates, but he only suffers 1/5 of the attack of that rock since that's the density he couldn't deal with.