House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

[Fazhoul]

A friend of mine who runs Champions for our group has never hidden his dislike of multipowers and elemental controls (and VPPs too). At first he said that he never really fully grapsed how they worked (specifically MP's) but after we spent an hour explaining them to him his reasoning now is that he thinks that they are just "ways of munchkining points out of your character". He recently told us that he is considering starting up a new Champs game but not allowing any Power Frameworks of any kind to be used in the building of our characters. Several of us in the group aren't too thrilled about this idea and have told him so but he doesn't seem to care. We haven't abused the power frameworks. He just doesn't like them.

 

I think that he doesn't like for our PCs to have power frameworks because he doesn't use them when he creates his villains because of his dislike for them. This friend of mine also argues that Elemental Controls are supposed to be based on ELEMENTS, i.e. earth, air, fire, water or derivations thereof. In the recent past he has relented to allow things like cosmic energy or atomic energy.

 

What's anyone else think?

[schir1964]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I think it's fine for a GM to disallow frameworks for his games, as long as he's upfront about it and the players know what to expect. The players can always choose to play or not to play. Now how that GM handles certain character types would be a good question for the players to ask that GM before the decide to join the game. Will he use something like the Power Skill to allow characters to simulate what VPP would allow and so forth.

 

As to the reasonings behind his decision, that's a completely different matter and it's up the players and GM to resolve those differences if it is causing any strife.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Lucius]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Heck, I've NEVER used or encouraged elemental controls.

 

As for the other two, I can't see not using them; too many good and useful character concepts can only work that way.

 

But there's a very, very old saying; "you play in the man's game, you play by his rules."

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Elemental Control: Palindromedary Powers! naaah....

[OddHat]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Pure Bricks, Power Armor Bricks, and Brick-Martial Artists become overwhelmingly the most powerful builds in that kind of game. Without some sort of framework, the other archetypes can't really compete.

 

Expect to see at least one guy with power armor, leaping, and a martial art built around Charge and Flying Dodge.

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I can't imagine a game that doesn't use Frameworks at all. Well, I suppose in a normal, non-super game you could change the background write up of all multiple function weapons and equipment, but it just doesn't jive in a supers game. What happens when Doctor Totes A Gun Around Lad has, well, a gun he totes around but he can only fire one type of ammo at a time? There isn't a Limitation for that, other than cannot be part of a Multipower Attack perhaps (which is nowhere near the value if it actually prevents the use of other Powers from operating at all). What about Captain Energy Flux Man, who can either maintain a near industructable shield around himself, fly at mach one, or be impossible strong, but only one at a time? Multiple Power Attacks aren't even an isse here. Apparent such concepts are an impossibility in such a campaign.

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Pure Bricks, Power Armor Bricks, and Brick-Martial Artists become overwhelmingly the most powerful builds in that kind of game. Without some sort of framework, the other archetypes can't really compete.

 

Expect to see at least one guy with power armor, leaping, and a martial art built around Charge and Flying Dodge.

 

And don't forget CSLs with Throwing.

[Kristopher]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I think people have covered it fairly well. I understand the objection to ECs, even though I strongly disagree with the objection. What boggles my mind is the objection to MPs.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I've played in normal-heroic games without frameworks, and it worked all right because we weren't paying points for weapons & equipment. But supers? Ay yi yi.

 

It sounds like your friend still doesn't quite understand what frameworks are for. To me, good frameworks don't necessarily make characters more powerful -- assuming point caps or the like are enforced -- they just make them considerably more versatile. You could build an energy projector (for example) without using frameworks: one blast, one forcefield and maybe flight. He might even be able to hold his own in a fight. But he'll be a total one-trick pony. :Yawn: You can get away with that for NPCs, but PC heroes need to be better rounded than that, if only to avoid player boredom.

 

[Edit: The most abusive character concepts I've ever seen didn't involve frameworks; they had one (or maybe two) powers that were min-maxed to absurdity. Which is exactly the type of character your friend is unintentionally pushing you towards creating.]

 

I don't mean to undermine a GM I've never even met. But it seems like you've got three choices. One: find another GM. Two: stick with characteristic & skills-based characters, which are inherantly more versatile. Or three: go ahead and build that energy pro (or whatever) without frameworks, show your GM what a lame, one-dimensional character you wind up with; then show him the same character, built with a simple multipower (or whatever), to illustrate that the framework version is no more powerful than the non-framed version, but is considerably more versatile (ie - fun).

 

 

bigdamnhero

[BlackSword]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I think people have covered it fairly well. I understand the objection to ECs' date=' even though I strongly disagree with the objection. What boggles my mind is the objection to MPs.[/quote']

While I agree that MPs are valuable, they also can cause headaches. Invariably someone comes up with Dr. Every-Power-In-My-Multipower PC. We had one PC that had Flash, Drain, Energy Blast, Entangle, Teleport, TK, and several other powers in his MP. At some point it does turn into munchkin's paradise. I have wondered if there was a way to limit MPs somewhat, a certain number of powers available, and then required an adder or advantage to go over the set cap.

[John Desmarais]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

A friend of mine who runs Champions for our group has never hidden his dislike of multipowers and elemental controls (and VPPs too). At first he said that he never really fully grapsed how they worked (specifically MP's) but after we spent an hour explaining them to him his reasoning now is that he thinks that they are just "ways of munchkining points out of your character". He recently told us that he is considering starting up a new Champs game but not allowing any Power Frameworks of any kind to be used in the building of our characters. Several of us in the group aren't too thrilled about this idea and have told him so but he doesn't seem to care. We haven't abused the power frameworks. He just doesn't like them.

 

I think that he doesn't like for our PCs to have power frameworks because he doesn't use them when he creates his villains because of his dislike for them. This friend of mine also argues that Elemental Controls are supposed to be based on ELEMENTS, i.e. earth, air, fire, water or derivations thereof. In the recent past he has relented to allow things like cosmic energy or atomic energy.

 

What's anyone else think?

 

Did he used to live in Virginia?

[John Desmarais]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

This friend of mine also argues that Elemental Controls are supposed to be based on ELEMENTS' date=' i.e. earth, air, fire, water or derivations thereof. In the recent past he has relented to allow things like cosmic energy or atomic energy. [/quote']

 

This is simply an example of being to lazy to read the rules and making a silly assumption based on the name of the construct. He would have to be hell of great GM/storyteller for me to put up with such a willful and deliberate lack of basic knowledge of the rules.

[OddHat]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

There's always a new way for a power gamer to optimize his character, and the GM always has unlimited points and total control of the environment. Outlawing frameworks does little to curb power players.

 

As GM, I reserve final call on all characters; most of the time the player will write a background and power description, I'll approve it or ask for revisions, and then I'll write up the actual character sheet with mechanics. If the player wants changes, we talk it over from there. Since I have good players, it works out.

[Blue]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

In my first campaign, that ran about 6 years, I allowed ECs but not MPs. ECs were fairly simple and direct, and MPs just seemed to be too easy to speed upwards with experience. You could way outpace other folks with an MP if the GM didn't have a cap on your powers.

 

These days I allows both. But I do think life was simpler without them.

[Rapier]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

ECs are pretty rare in my games. They just don't get much use.

 

VPPs are pretty unheard of. It's usually a Magic VPP or Gadget VPP that requires extensive lab time to switch. Which means that it is never a lot of points, nor does it come up in midst of a game. It is more often a plot device that the party needs Power X but doesn't have it, so the VPPer heads back to the shop and whips it up.

 

MPs are pretty popular, with certain Archetypes. It's rare for an Energy Projector to not have one. It's rare for a Brick to have one. I am, of course, excepting a couple of the Trick MPs (eg Brick Tricks).

 

Some valid and good concepts do not lend themselves to frameworks. Things like Bricks are "One-Trick-Ponies" to a certain degree. Most Bricks rely very heavily on their Strength. There is a large niche for the combat Mentalist, who may only have a single EGO Attack as an attack power. There is nothing wrong with these concepts.

 

However, there are also more general concepts. Imagine the rather common, LightRayGirl. She controls Light. I could very easily see her with an EC with some Desol, Force Field, Damage Shield stuff. I very easily also see her with an Attack MP: EB, possibly RKA, Flash, maybe a FW. By outlawing FrameWorks as a matter of course, you are severely limiting some of the common, proto-typical, genre concepts that are a staple of Champions games.

 

Without an enveloping FrameWork, how would you handle certain limitations? Part of the reason that FrameWorks exist is to lump certain powers together by concept. Consider: there is an extremely common build that is used all over the place:

 

15 -- HandAxe MP (OAF): 30 Active

u -- a) 2d6 HKA

u -- 2d6 RKA (1 Recoverable Charge, Lockout)

 

This allows a weapon that can be used HtH or Ranged. If you outlaw FrameWorks you make this impossible...so you would build 2 Powers (at double the points). If the OAF for the HtH is taken can you use the RKA? Or are you going to try to force some crazy limitation on the RKA or the HKA?

 

Outlawing FrameWorks is a bad idea. I would not play in a campaign like this for a couple reasons.

 

1) It outlaws (or makes impossible or extremely unwieldy) some very good, common concepts.

 

2) It adds a great deal of added complexity and work-arounds. Hero is complex enough as it is, and this adds complexity for no purpose.

 

3) I wonder about the reason behind the decision.

a) The GM doesn't fully understand the rules enough. This is going to be a difficult game. The GM should ALWAYS have a fairly good understanding of the rules...or at least just as good as the rest of the players. This doesn't sound like the case if all of you are explaining frameworks to him.

The GM dislikes FrameWorks for some reason and is flexing GM muscle into making you conform. This is extremely bad GMing. I could foresee a GM like this into forcing your character to open doors it doesn't want to open because its what's needed to advance his plot. This is the kind of GM that would have a female character raped by orcs because he gets his rocks off by this kind of thing. I dislike certain powers and would prefer not to see them, however, if a character has a good concept and its warranted it shouldn't be a problem. Also consider that disallowing FrameWorks is VERY different than disalloing Absorption or EDM.

 

Characters in this campaign simply wouldn't have the points to be as versatile as the concept requires. This would lead to characters that are rather flat, unwieldy, difficult to play within concept and uninteresting...and frustrating to the player. I believe the GM has some serious issues that need to be worked out before I would play with him as GM. At the very least there needs to be some kind of sit-down discussion about what to expect. If he cannot convince you he has a good, well-grounded reason for something like this I would not join his campaign.

[SuperKlaus]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

We had one PC that had Flash' date=' Drain, Energy Blast, Entangle, Teleport, TK, and several other powers in his MP. At some point it does turn into munchkin's paradise. I have wondered if there was a way to limit MPs somewhat, a certain number of powers available, and then required an adder or advantage to go over the set cap.[/quote']

 

Similarity of power concepts? I figure ECs and MPs are just two paths to the same objective of letting a character manifest different uses of a power or two like "telekinesis" or "frickin' laser eyes." How did the player define his MP, and if he defined it as "whatever I damn well please," who let it fly instead of requesting a much costlier VPP?

[ghost-angel]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I've played in normal-heroic games without frameworks, and it worked all right because we weren't paying points for weapons & equipment. But supers? Ay yi yi.

 

It sounds like your friend still doesn't quite understand what frameworks are for. To me, good frameworks don't necessarily make characters more powerful -- assuming point caps or the like are enforced -- they just make them considerably more versatile. You could build an energy projector (for example) without using frameworks: one blast, one forcefield and maybe flight. He might even be able to hold his own in a fight. But he'll be a total one-trick pony. :Yawn: You can get away with that for NPCs, but PC heroes need to be better rounded than that, if only to avoid player boredom.

 

[Edit: The most abusive character concepts I've ever seen didn't involve frameworks; they had one (or maybe two) powers that were min-maxed to absurdity. Which is exactly the type of character your friend is unintentionally pushing you towards creating.]

 

I don't mean to undermine a GM I've never even met. But it seems like you've got three choices. One: find another GM. Two: stick with characteristic & skills-based characters, which are inherantly more versatile. Or three: go ahead and build that energy pro (or whatever) without frameworks, show your GM what a lame, one-dimensional character you wind up with; then show him the same character, built with a simple multipower (or whatever), to illustrate that the framework version is no more powerful than the non-framed version, but is considerably more versatile (ie - fun).

 

 

bigdamnhero

BDM said what I was going to say for the most part.

 

I expect this game to have a lot of 1 trick ponies in it from the PCs. And I don't mean 1 schtick Ponies - I mean each PC will have a favorite Power that they can do stuff with and be mostly locked into that one action.

 

I see Martial Artists as the only ones with any real variety to their play.

[Maccabe]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Actually I have a house rule against EC's and Multi's which have over 5 or 6 powers after that it costs extra for each slot. I do something similiar with VVP's- they must take a limitation to describe the pool [ fire powers only, say] but they don't get credit for the limitation. They can pay extra to remove the limitation, just like NO SKILL ROLL REQ, OR TAKES NO TIME TO CHANGE (Cosmic Power Pools)

[mallet]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I think that before "fighting" the GM on the issue you should find out exactly what feel/genre of superhero game he is going for. If it is a full blown Champions game using the published rules and setting, then, yes, he should allow frameworks because some of the published villians and supers have them and the players should have access to anything the NPC's have.

 

On the other hand if he is going for a custom built low powered super-hero game where all the characters are "mutants" who should only have one main power, or where all the powers are "gifts" from some supernatural source of something then not allowing frameworks might fit the feel of the game better.

 

I have played and GM'd super games that have not allowed frameworks (I am currently running a "Psi-Hero" game that does not allow frameworks), and they can be fine. I just depends on the setting, the NPC's, and the players. As long as those three factors are in alignment then it can be fine and fun to play with out frameworks.

[Kristopher]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

While I agree that MPs are valuable' date=' they also can cause headaches. Invariably someone comes up with Dr. Every-Power-In-My-Multipower PC. We had one PC that had Flash, Drain, Energy Blast, Entangle, Teleport, TK, and several other powers in his MP. At some point it does turn into munchkin's paradise. I have wondered if there was a way to limit MPs somewhat, a certain number of powers available, and then required an adder or advantage to go over the set cap.[/quote']

 

The GM does have to exercise a little backbone when it comes to Frameworks, but that's just as true for the entire HERO system.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

If the OAF for the HtH is taken can you use the RKA? Or are you going to try to force some crazy limitation on the RKA or the HKA?

Rapier makes a good point about foci. Ask your friend how he would build Green Lantern's Ring without using Frameworks. While personally I tend to be leery of "All My Powers Come From One Focus" characters, they are a staple of the genre.

 

BDM said what I was going to say for the most part.

Funny, it usually happens the other way around.

 

Actually I have a house rule against EC's and Multi's which have over 5 or 6 powers after that it costs extra for each slot.

Now that sounds like a reasonable restriction to me. I remember reading someone else saying they had a house rule of limiting MPs to one slot per 10 Active Points or something like that?

 

 

bigdamnhero

[ghost-angel]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Funny' date=' it usually happens the other way around. [/quote']

It's all in who gets there first

 

While I think his reasoning is completely off the rocker flawed...

 

The actual restriction isn't as world ending as it might look to be. I just think it will lead to a bit of repetativeness on the parts of the characters.

 

I like Frameworks for the interesting variety of Powers they give a character access to through the point breaks.. and GM worth their dice will stomp on unacceptable builds, frameworks or no.

[Sean Waters]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I think frameworks are overused: almost by rote in some cases. They are useful tools and building certain types of character is virtually impossible without them but, as Mallet says, some types of game don't need them.

 

I suspect that one type of game that doesn't need them is a game without them in

 

I'd try it and see before I worried about it. Part of the problem with the nearky infinite choice of Hero is you get used to it. You can do without it though: it might hurt for a few days but you'll live.

 

Give the game a go: you might like it.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I suspect that one type of game that doesn't need them is a game without them in

"How profound, Wizard!"

 

bigdamnhero

[Hyper-Man]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

I would ask this GM if he plans to ban Variable Advantage as well.

 

see this post as to the reason why: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=890486&postcount=41

[Fazhoul]

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

 

Here are the powers that my character in his last game had. I based him on Brainwave Jr. from Infinity Inc. And by based on I mean ripped off wholesale. We were hurriedly making up characters and I was stuck for an idea. I found a write-up for Brainwave on the Great Netbook of Heroes and modified it a little. All powers are within the active point limits that he set for the campaign which was a four-color campaign based in a version of the Champs universe. He had right of refusal on all characters and powers on characters and he never said boo! about anything ahead of time. He didn't even express any reservations or trepidations about some of our powers.

 

60 Mental Powers: Multipower, 90-point reserve, (90 Active Points); all slots Activation Roll 14- (-1/2)

6u 1) Ego Attack 7d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (87 Active Points); 3

6u 2) EB 9d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Double Knockback (+3/4) (90 Active Points); 4

6u 3) EB 14d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (87 Active Points); 3

6u 4) Telekinesis (50 STR), Fine Manipulation (85 Active Points); 8

6u 5) Mind Control 12d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Telepathic (+1/4) (90 Active Points); 3

5u 6) Telepathy 13d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (81 Active Points); 3

 

24 Elemental Control, 60-point powers, (30 Active Points); all slots Activation Roll 15- (-1/4)

24 1) FF (20 PD/20 ED/10 Mental Defense/10 Power Defense) (60 Active Points); 6

24 2) Flight 28" (56 Active Points); 6

17 3) Mind Link , Any Willing Target, Any distance, No LOS Needed, Number of Minds (x8) (45 Active Points); Costs Endurance (-1/2)