Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

[Wanderer]

In the process of giving a character a set of Superman-like vanilla super-senses: Enhanced perception, check, IR and UV vision, check, Targeting hearing, check, 360 degrees vision, check... I stumbled upon Ultrasonic Hearing, which would be very appropriate, too, and realized that to make it conform to both common sense and hero rules, it was going to cost 18 pts (3 for the base power, 5 for making it 360 degrees, and 10 to make it targeting). Moreover, if you wish to make normal sense groups fully discriminatory, notwithstanding that they are already "almost-discriminatory", it's going to cost 25 pts (sight group, normal hearing, normal smell, normal touch) or 40 pts (all usual sense groups).

 

Am I the only one to deem this pricing scheme far exceeding the real usefulness of these senses and sense modifiers ??

[L. Marcus]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

I think youäre overlooking the Simulated Sense rule (I think it's that one). To enhance a sense (that the character already has), just pay the price of the improvements over the standard sense in the sense group.

 

Or something.

[Wanderer]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Hearing Sense Group does not bestow 360 degrees to other senses in the group besides normal hearing, and making targeting either normal hearing and Ultrasonic perception, or the whole hearing sense group, costs just the same. Now, I can understand these prices somehow make sense for a very useful sense like Active Sonar, but they seem insane for a sense of marginal usefulness like ultrasonic hearing, especially since you can reap 90% of the maximum potential utility of the Hearing sense group just by making normal hearing targeting; who needs an active sonar in that case ??.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

What L. Marcus said and ... if you want all the senses in a group to be Targeting (like your normal hearing and ultrasonic hearing) buy Targting for the Hearing Group and any sense you place as a "Hearing Group Sense" will automatically become Targeting.

 

Senses are not, IMO, overpriced. Especially when you consider what you can do with them and that buying a second Sense (or Sense Group) as Targeting you can potentially bypass such things as Flashs, Darkness and possibly Images as well as envrionmental effects with little effort on your part.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Hearing Sense Group does not bestow 360 degrees to other senses in the group besides normal hearing' date=' and making targeting either normal hearing and Ultrasonic perception, or the whole hearing sense group, costs just the same. Now, I can understand these prices somehow make sense for a very useful sense like Active Sonar, but they seem insane for a sense of marginal usefulness like ultrasonic hearing, especially since you can reap 90% of the maximum potential utility of the Hearing sense group just by making normal hearing targeting; who needs an active sonar in that case ??.[/quote']

 

Well, in the case of Active Sonar, you're emitting your own ultrasonic sounds to reflect off your surroundings, so you'll be able to automatically perceive objects which don't make sounds of their own. That would be far more useful than Targetting Normal Hearing in many circumstances.

 

Enhanced Senses that are generally more useful have a higher Base Cost than those which are less useful, which is reasonable. The various Sense Modifiers cost the same whatever Enhanced Sense they're applied to; it might be "fairer" if they varied depending on the Base Cost of the Sense, but that would add even more complexity to the system, and in most cases wouldn't be worth the effort IMO.

 

One thing I've noticed about HERO is that the various Powers don't always square exactly when you start to apply a lot of Modifiers to them; one or another may become significantly more effective in certain circumstances. It's a reflection of the HERO System not being perfect.

 

In the case of Enhanced Senses, though, I believe that the ability to apply Modifiers to entire Sense Groups, so that any Senses put in those groups take on the same Modifiers, obviates the discrepancies between individual Modified Senses. In other words, it doesn't balance perfectly but in most situations it works pretty well.

[Ogmios]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Senses are not' date=' IMO, overpriced. Especially when you consider what you can do with them and that buying a second Sense (or Sense Group) as Targeting you can potentially bypass such things as Flashs, Darkness and possibly Images as well as envrionmental effects with little effort on your part.[/quote']

 

Moreover, when used wisely (and especially when combined with your own Darkness, Flash and Change Environment powers), Enhanced Senses would allow you to recieve most of the benefits you'd get from being invisible.

Not to mention their usefulness outside of combat situations...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Hearing Sense Group does not bestow 360 degrees to other senses in the group besides normal hearing' date=' and making targeting either normal hearing and Ultrasonic perception, or the whole hearing sense group, costs just the same. Now, I can understand these prices somehow make sense for a very useful sense like Active Sonar, but they seem insane for a sense of marginal usefulness like ultrasonic hearing, especially since you can reap 90% of the maximum potential utility of the Hearing sense group just by making normal hearing targeting; who needs an active sonar in that case ??.[/quote']

 

Maybe not but only because normal hearing was bought with the 5 point version of 360 degrees: for another 5 points you can make every sense in that group 360 degrees. Bargain. (Arguably it should be 10 points: bad argument)

 

It would have been nice for normal senses to be properly costed out. Normal sight, for example, appears to be a 3 or maybe a 5 point detect, which I disagree with...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Looking at Hearing...

 

Target: Hearing Group - 20 points.

Ultra Sonic Hearing - 3 points

360 Hearing Group - 10 points

 

for 33 points you have a 360 Targeting Sense with an enhanced range of perception. This is not to be underestimated considering you can thwart a whole host of powers since the average person has Sight Based Targeting and the majority of Sense Denial is targeted against that. You can be Sight Flashed, at night in a Darkness field with sand in your eyes and still not get any penalties for combat... all for a meager 33 points.

[austenandrews]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

I'm with Wanderer. They've always seemed overpriced to me, considering that as often as not they're of very limited usefulness.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Maybe it's the games we play in. I've found them to be extremely useful. I get pretty good mileage out of an alternate Targeting and/or Discriminatory Sense.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

I don't find them overpriced individually, but I'll agree that trying to put buy a whole bunch of them can induce sticker shock. I've never played around with building an Enhanced Senses EC or MP, but I would think that would be the way to go if you really wanted a Superman-type list.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Though I will admit I'm trying to build a character who relys completely on an alternate Sense Group for everything and it is a good chunk of character points, the utility, on the other hand, will probably match what I'm trying to accomplish.

[austenandrews]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Maybe it's the games we play in. I've found them to be extremely useful. I get pretty good mileage out of an alternate Targeting and/or Discriminatory Sense.

To be fair, I (and I suspect most of the posters here) am the sort of player who'd squeeze a campaign's worth of utility out of a Detect Small Lizard power. But most GMs I've played with don't expend much effort on making sure that Ultrasonic Hearing or Microscopic Vision are worth the cost.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

I don't find them overpriced individually' date=' but I'll agree that trying to put buy a whole bunch of them can induce sticker shock. I've never played around with building an Enhanced Senses EC or MP, but I would think that would be the way to go if you really wanted a Superman-type list.[/quote']

 

 

It's OK if you have Superman type points

 

Don't forget you can deconstruct and reconstruct normal senses, so you can buy targetting for your normal hearing, range for your touch and whatever else you want. Also it is remarkable how useful a few levels of PER can be.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

Maybe it's the games we play in. I've found them to be extremely useful. I get pretty good mileage out of an alternate Targeting and/or Discriminatory Sense.

 

In one game, I created a Dr. Midnight clone. Independently, another player created a character, Leopard, with a KA and targetting sense that my character's Darkness didn't block.

 

Early on, I tossed a Dark Grenade into a fight between Leopard and Scorpia, the character believing he was sharply reducing the chance of a fatality. Poor Scorpia!

 

Enhanced Senses can create a huge synergy effect with the right additional powers.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

To be fair' date=' I (and I suspect most of the posters here) am the sort of player who'd squeeze a campaign's worth of utility out of a Detect Small Lizard power. But most GMs I've played with don't expend much effort on making sure that Ultrasonic Hearing or Microscopic Vision are worth the cost.[/quote']

Well, both of those by themselves are 3 points each. It's when you try and make them do much much more that it gets expensive. And honestly, the player should look at how they're spending their points. But I see your point, sometimes a secondary sense can be comparatively expensive to the utility actually garnered.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

In one game, I created a Dr. Midnight clone. Independently, another player created a character, Leopard, with a KA and targetting sense that my character's Darkness didn't block.

 

Early on, I tossed a Dark Grenade into a fight between Leopard and Scorpia, the character believing he was sharply reducing the chance of a fatality. Poor Scorpia!

 

Enhanced Senses can create a huge synergy effect with the right additional powers.

This is very true, we have the same situation with a set of our characters, one can rely on multiple senses and the other can deny sensory perception. It can make for an overwhelmingly effective combo.

[Rapier]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

To be fair' date=' I (and I suspect most of the posters here) am the sort of player who'd squeeze a campaign's worth of utility out of a Detect Small Lizard power. But most GMs I've played with don't expend much effort on making sure that Ultrasonic Hearing or Microscopic Vision are worth the cost.[/quote']

 

I will admit that I don't always give as much input to the more normal of the unusual sense powers (eg Ultrasonic Hearing and Microscopic Vision). Part of it is the difficulty in trying to explain something that most of us have never experienced at a realistic level and going into a great deal of trouble for little benefit.

 

Do I fall into the trap of only adding the description when its important? I know a guy that would GM and would ask you to roll a Find Secret Doors roll only when there was a secret door around. If we didn't find one on our automated check we would search the room until we did find it. I don't want to fall into that trap either.

 

Someone with UltraSonic Hearing would ALWAYS be hearing a great deal more than the average person. Should I then throw in some special description for the UH? We basically fall back on the 6 Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman model where you don't use your UltraSonic Hearing until you pull your hair back from your ear and tilt your head to the side.

 

Is it actually realistic to have a character "turn on" some hearing? No. But it does get us by. Our game model is premised on the fact that most of us hear things all day long and don't actually pay attention to them.

 

For instance, today I walked to the mailbox on the corner. While it didn't register, I am sure that I heard some kind of fauna (most likely a squirrel), some passing vehicles, the blind traffic signal beep, someone's radio and a host of other things...I just tuned them out.

[kave99]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

seems OK to me but in the old days there was a cost brake on mutable senses that went like this:

full cost on the two most expensive senses

1/2 cost on the next two most expensive senses

1/4 cost after that

[ghost-angel]

Re: Enhanced Senses, overpriced ??

 

One thing I would point out is that Ultrasonic Hearing is 3 points - and you would probably get 3 points worth of utility out of it.

 

Making it Targeting, unless you do so for the whole Hearing Group, is probably not the best use of the points available to you.

 

One of the Golden Rules - just because you Can do it does not mean you Should do it.