Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Keith "And while singing Gilbert and Sullivan" Curtis

 

ahem... *cough* *clears throat*

 

I am the very model of a modern Major General

I'm information vegatable animal and mineral

I know the kings of England and I quote the facts historical

from Marathon to Waterloo in order catagorical

 

I'm very well acquanted too with matters mathimatical

I understand equations both the simple and quadratical

about binomial theeorum I am teeming with a lot of news

with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuese

 

 

 

(from memory)

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

ahem... *cough* *clears throat*

 

I am the very model of a modern Major General

I'm information vegatable animal and mineral

I know the kings of England and I quote the facts historical

from Marathon to Waterloo in order catagorical

 

I'm very well acquanted too with matters mathimatical

I understand equations both the simple and quadratical

about binomial theeorum I am teeming with a lot of news

with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuese

 

I am the very model of a modern Hero Gamer

I've creations Heroic, Villainous and Vehicular

I know the costs of Powers and I quote the rules extensively

From Creation to Adventuring, in manner most excessively!

 

I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical

I understand equations both Active and Real-point-atical

About odd Power builds I am teeming with a lot of views

And many offered notes about the cost of their abuse!

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

OK chalk another pair up for the "give it to them for free after a grab" group.

 

Question for those in that crowd...

 

Would this still be the case for a cheap, megasacle teleport that can get you into space? or maybe just around the world say?

 

A stretchy character with levels in grab and some fixed points in particularly intriguing locations would seem to be an intriguing character in a campaign with free "take the unwilling if you grab them" teleports.

 

BAMF... "Welcome to GUARD. Say hello to the nice gentlemen."

BAMF... "Welcome to the deep ocean. What? No water breathing or life support vs pressure/cold?"

BAMF..."Welcome to orbit."

BAMF..."Welcome to Moscow. I gotta go get back to the fight. See you later." followed by BAMF... "Welcome to deserted island somewhere in the pacific. Be back with friends to collect you shortly, once we finish your buddies."

 

???

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

I'd probably say no to the character before I'd say no to the Power build.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

OK chalk another pair up for the "give it to them for free after a grab" group.

 

Question for those in that crowd...

 

Would this still be the case for a cheap, megasacle teleport that can get you into space? or maybe just around the world say?

 

A stretchy character with levels in grab and some fixed points in particularly intriguing locations would seem to be an intriguing character in a campaign with free "take the unwilling if you grab them" teleports.

 

BAMF... "Welcome to GUARD. Say hello to the nice gentlemen."

BAMF... "Welcome to the deep ocean. What? No water breathing or life support vs pressure/cold?"

BAMF..."Welcome to orbit."

BAMF..."Welcome to Moscow. I gotta go get back to the fight. See you later." followed by BAMF... "Welcome to deserted island somewhere in the pacific. Be back with friends to collect you shortly, once we finish your buddies."

 

I agree with Chris Goodwin - the build isn't the problem, it's the ability.

 

Tacking on megascale means the character must, I believe, go noncombat and take a full phase. So Stretchy Grabs his target. He's now at DCV penalties, so he's a target of opportunity. Then he gets set to MS TP, so he goes to DCV 0. He's still DCV 0 on the deserted island, so perhaps get struck by the character he TP's in before getting to leave. Returning to the fray, he arrives at 0 DCV.

 

Meanwhile, the guy with Megascale flight can do exactly the same thing - grab a target and fly him to a deserted island/the upper atmosphere/the bottom of the ocean.

 

The problem doesn't arise because it's a Teleport.

[David Johnston]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

OK chalk another pair up for the "give it to them for free after a grab" group.

 

Question for those in that crowd...

 

Would this still be the case for a cheap, megasacle teleport that can get you into space? or maybe just around the world say?

 

A stretchy character with levels in grab and some fixed points in particularly intriguing locations would seem to be an intriguing character in a campaign with free "take the unwilling if you grab them" teleports.

 

BAMF... "Welcome to GUARD. Say hello to the nice gentlemen."

BAMF... "Welcome to the deep ocean. What? No water breathing or life support vs pressure/cold?"

BAMF..."Welcome to orbit."

BAMF..."Welcome to Moscow. I gotta go get back to the fight. See you later." followed by BAMF... "Welcome to deserted island somewhere in the pacific. Be back with friends to collect you shortly, once we finish your buddies."

 

???

 

Seems to me that megascale teleportation with "fixed points" would place you anywhere within the megascale hex. And most of the characters you'd want to do that to are strong enough that that you wouldn't be able to subdue them that long with a grapple anyway. Essentially in any case, it's the amazing power to make supervillains escape. I'm so impressed.

[Robyn]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Big example: Guy with electrical powers' date=' most of which were bought 'Not in water', which is a perfectly viable limitation. But at -1, which means he has to encounter enough water to short himself out every other game. So ... he did. It was a weird philosophy I was on at the time ... if a character sheet said that, say, Lasers were Common, then they were. If they said Magnetic Fields were very common, they were ... generally by redefining the quantity of the substance in question. For example, 'not in water' at a -1/4 meant immersion or getting totally wet. -1/2 meant knee deep. -1 meant you shorted out if you got spit on, etc.[/quote']

 

So . . . in other words, you were treating the value of the limitation as "how frequently can it affect the character" and not "how frequently does the trigger appear in game"?

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

 

I agree with Chris Goodwin - the build isn't the problem, it's the ability.

if a Gm will disallow a character with a given power build, then he is effectively disallowing the build. Right? Saying "i have no problem with the power... i just wont allow anyone to take it" doesn't feel quite satisfied with the result.

 

Tacking on megascale means the character must, I believe, go noncombat and take a full phase. So Stretchy Grabs his target. He's now at DCV penalties, so he's a target of opportunity. Then he gets set to MS TP, so he goes to DCV 0. He's still DCV 0 on the deserted island, so perhaps get struck by the character he TP's in before getting to leave. Returning to the fray, he arrives at 0 DCV.

Actually he is at 1/2 DCV iirc. OCv is 0, but he doesn't need to roll to hit to maintain a grab.

Meanwhile, the guy with Megascale flight can do exactly the same thing - grab a target and fly him to a deserted island/the upper atmosphere/the bottom of the ocean.

So by this are we now disallowing anyone with megascale flight who can grab too?

The problem doesn't arise because it's a Teleport.

 

if all characters with the ability are disallowed, then it doesn't arise at all.

 

as devils advocate, i would point out that some would call using teleport with grab to divide and conquer your enemies or to snatch bad guys to a more handleable area is a "reasonable use" or "clever use" of teleport, just as a flier picking up someone and hauling them into the air or a swimmer luring someone to the docks and knocking them into the water is as well.

 

Do all those types of characters deserve being disallowed on sight too, just like the teleport guy does? (You did agree with Chris, right?)

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

So . . . in other words' date=' you were treating the value of the limitation as "how frequently can it affect the character" and not "how frequently does the trigger appear in game"?[/quote']

 

thats how i run it.

[KA.]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

OK chalk another pair up for the "give it to them for free after a grab" group.

 

Question for those in that crowd...

 

Would this still be the case for a cheap, megasacle teleport that can get you into space? or maybe just around the world say?

 

A stretchy character with levels in grab and some fixed points in particularly intriguing locations would seem to be an intriguing character in a campaign with free "take the unwilling if you grab them" teleports.

 

BAMF... "Welcome to GUARD. Say hello to the nice gentlemen."

BAMF... "Welcome to the deep ocean. What? No water breathing or life support vs pressure/cold?"

BAMF..."Welcome to orbit."

BAMF..."Welcome to Moscow. I gotta go get back to the fight. See you later." followed by BAMF... "Welcome to deserted island somewhere in the pacific. Be back with friends to collect you shortly, once we finish your buddies."

 

???

 

tesuji,

Let me start by saying that I almost always find your threads interesting, because you tend to bring up rules considerations that people may never have thought of.

 

However, you also sometimes seem to come into the discussion with a very strong point of view, and basically dare someone to 'prove you wrong'.

 

I am not saying that you are deliberately trying to start arguments.

 

But I think you might be waiting to post about something until you have gotten so annoyed about it that you have a hard time discussing it calmly.

 

I am the first to admit that there are some topics I have a hard time with.

 

It also seems like you game, or perhaps just discuss rules, in a more adversarial environment than most of us are used to.

 

Your post above seems to indicate that.

 

My group is basically on-board with the idea that something which is too 'efficient' is probably actually abusive, and that hurts the game for everyone.

 

It sounds like you are doing things in a more 'legalistic' way, meaning that if the GM agrees to a build or a power, that anything the player can come up with based on that ruling is now 'allowed' and the GM has nothing to say about it.

 

It is sort of like a parent who sees a baseball stuck in the gutter offering to pay his son $10 to get it out.

If the boy asks "Gee, Dad, can I always get $10 for getting a baseball out of the gutter?"

And the father says "Well, I guess so."

That does not give the son the okay to gather up 1000 baseballs from all over the city, cram the gutters with them, and then demand $10,000 for the cleanup.

More likely the son should end up cleaning them up for free, along with a good talking to for being a smart-alec.

 

Now I don't think that a GM has the right to 'punish' a player that way, but if someone had Teleport, and I ruled that they could Teleport a person that they grabbed (ruling that being 'held' constituted 'willing'), I would still have no problem telling them they couldn't 'grab' a piece of dirt and teleport the entire Earth somewhere, or any other such nonsense.

 

I think they key is that in any sufficiently flexible system there simply has to be an element of human supervision to avoid abuse.

No set of rules would allow you to build whatever you wanted, but never allow you to build anything 'unfair' or 'unbalanced'.

 

KA.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

if a Gm will disallow a character with a given power build' date=' then he is effectively disallowing the build. Right? Saying "i have no problem with the power... i just wont allow anyone to take it" doesn't feel quite satisfied with the result.[/quote']

 

The difference I perceive is between "will the GM allow the character to have this ability?" and "Is this a build that the GM will permit to be used to achieve this ability?" Your argument seems to be that it is inappropriate to allow the character with megascale teleport to be able to transport an unwilling target without paying for UAA. However, the issues you raise are just as problematic - no more and no less - if the character pays for UAA.

 

Actually he is at 1/2 DCV iirc. OCv is 0' date=' but he doesn't need to roll to hit to maintain a grab.[/quote']

 

I don't have the books in front of me, so I'll take your word that noncombat movement means 1/2 DCV. I'd still call that a target of opportunity.

 

So by this are we now disallowing anyone with megascale flight who can grab too?

 

I would rather say we are either disalllowing use of either flight or teleport to transport an unwilling target, even if they have been grabbed, or we are allowing either movement power to be used to transport an unwilling target who has been grabbed. I'm not arguing that either is, or is not, game-breaking. I am arguing that they are both equally game-breaking, or non-game breaking, and so it makes sense that the rule be the same for both.

 

if all characters with the ability are disallowed' date=' then it doesn't arise at all.[/quote']

 

And thus the solution is that if you find the ability to be game breaking, it should be disallowed.

 

as devils advocate' date=' i would point out that some would call using teleport with grab to divide and conquer your enemies or to snatch bad guys to a more handleable area is a "reasonable use" or "clever use" of teleport, just as a flier picking up someone and hauling them into the air or a swimmer luring someone to the docks and knocking them into the water is as well. [/quote']

 

As you say - it is just as reasonable, just as clever, and/or just as game-breaking to use Teleport in this fashion as it is to use any other movement power in this fashion. Thus, there is no reason to single Teleport out as the only movement power which cannot be used to move an unwilling target who has been Grabbed.

 

Do all those types of characters deserve being disallowed on sight too' date=' just like the teleport guy does? (You did agree with Chris, right?)[/quote']

 

I agreed with Chris that the problem (if there is one) is in the ability, not the mechanics by which the ability is constructed. Either all of these types of characters, including the teleporter, should be disallowed, or all of them, including the teleporter, should be allowed. Changing the power from "teleport" to "flight", or vice versa, does not change its potential ability to break the game.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Don't be silly. It's worth -1/7' date=' simple as rhinocerous pie:idjit:[/quote']

I'm not sure if you're just joking here, but it is an important point to keep in mind: "Doesn't work on Tuesdays" is worth *less* than -1/7 (I estimated about -1/10). The reason is that the character knows in advance if it's Tuesday and can decide whether to attempt to use the power based on that fact.

 

If the limitation is "Doesn't work vs Targets that have the Hufarb Gene" (and 1/7 of the population has the Hufarb Gene), then it's worth about -1/7, because the character has no way of knowing in advance if the power will work (assuming he doesn't also have "Detect Hufarb Gene"). Although the limitation that reflects the exacr diminished utility in this case would be -1/6, which would result in a power with 6/7 of the cost.

 

Oh, and BTW, rhinoceros pie is *far* from simple!

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

I will skip the whole section on "talking about tesuji" and go straight to the section on "talking about the subject of the thread".

 

My group is basically on-board with the idea that something which is too 'efficient' is probably actually abusive, and that hurts the game for everyone.

Cool. i get that too.

It sounds like you are doing things in a more 'legalistic' way, meaning that if the GM agrees to a build or a power, that anything the player can come up with based on that ruling is now 'allowed' and the GM has nothing to say about it.

Well, I don't usually deal in absolutes and HERO definitely is anti-absolutes, so i would have to say "nah" to this absolute.

 

But if a player comes up with a reasonable and effective use of an ability... i rarely say NO. Creative use of powers is a superhero staple. I much prefer for a system which bases costs on effectiveness to actually charge for the effectiveness instead of handwaving the cost and then limiting the effectiveness ad hoc.

 

I hope that makes sense?

 

Put simply, i would rather say YES and charge an apopropriate cost than to say NO or to say YEs but then in practice say No to things for no "makes snese in game" reason.

 

It is sort of like a parent who sees a baseball stuck in the gutter offering to pay his son $10 to get it out.

If the boy asks "Gee, Dad, can I always get $10 for getting a baseball out of the gutter?"

And the father says "Well, I guess so."

That does not give the son the okay to gather up 1000 baseballs from all over the city, cram the gutters with them, and then demand $10,000 for the cleanup.

More likely the son should end up cleaning them up for free, along with a good talking to for being a smart-alec.

this sounds a lot like the "only in magnetic fields" notion being different price if your friend has "magnetic fields" as an SFX. This is already handled in the rules by the adjusting of the cost to fit the bill.

 

if a player wanted a power that only worked in magnetic fields and had a teammate that generated such fields as a matter of course which of the following would you choose:

 

1: permit the character but reduce the lim value... ie OK but charge appropriately

2: disallow the character.

 

Why is "teleporting unwilling people after a grab" a power allowed and then actually doing so in combat something to be disallowed? Its like saying "sure you can have it but don't use it".

 

Now I don't think that a GM has the right to 'punish' a player that way, but if someone had Teleport, and I ruled that they could Teleport a person that they grabbed (ruling that being 'held' constituted 'willing'), I would still have no problem telling them they couldn't 'grab' a piece of dirt and teleport the entire Earth somewhere, or any other such nonsense.

If you told me that, AFTER APPROVING my ability to teleport something as large as the earth which cost me a pretty penny let me tell you, i would ask "if you weren't going me to teleport a planet, why then did you allow me to spend a ton of points on that many mass adders?"

 

Why approve "i can teleport the earth" in the first place if you are not gonna let him do it? How many mass doublings was that he bought? What did you think he planned to do with them when you approved that teleport?

 

me, i would not normally allow that many mass doublings and if they were submitted i would ask "what is this for? How do you see using it?" BEFORE APPROVAL.

 

I think they key is that in any sufficiently flexible system there simply has to be an element of human supervision to avoid abuse.

this entire thread is about asking how the humans involved will handle it.

No set of rules would allow you to build whatever you wanted, but never allow you to build anything 'unfair' or 'unbalanced'.

 

if somehow you thought i was saying otherwise, my communication skills must have really misfired.

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

 

I'm not sure if you're just joking here, but it is an important point to keep in mind: "Doesn't work on Tuesdays" is worth *less* than -1/7 (I estimated about -1/10). The reason is that the character knows in advance if it's Tuesday and can decide whether to attempt to use the power based on that fact.

 

If the limitation is "Doesn't work vs Targets that have the Hufarb Gene" (and 1/7 of the population has the Hufarb Gene), then it's worth about -1/7, because the character has no way of knowing in advance if the power will work (assuming he doesn't also have "Detect Hufarb Gene"). Although the limitation that reflects the exacr diminished utility in this case would be -1/6, which would result in a power with 6/7 of the cost.

 

Oh, and BTW, rhinoceros pie is *far* from simple!

 

BTW i would question this for two reasons, one GMing based and another rules based.

 

GMing based... the Gm determines whether or not exciting things happoens on tuesday or on wednesday. your normal hero does not control when the bad guys strike and when he needs his powers. Scripting is in the hands of the GM. Similarly, a character vulnerable to fire WILL do everything he can to avoid fire, and one vulnerable to electricity will not knowingly rush into a transformer station and so on. most characters will reasonably try and avoid their known weakness BY DEFAULT... it is assumed by me that this is the case... the guy who cannot swim won't normally dive into deep water. So i dont see charging the tuesday hero more because he, like every other character with a flaw, will try and mitigate that flaw by avoiding the issue whenever circumstances (aka script) allows.

 

If fireboy decides he wont patrol the harbor and bay areas and will limit his patrol flights to over land, would you charge him more points too?

 

Rules Based: Consider that visibility of the trait is not normally considered in HERO costing for some things. I can have NND (not vs force fields) and NND (not vs this or that life support) and NND (not vs mutants) and the fact that force fields are normally visible while LS is 50/50 at best and mutant vs altered human vs mentalist vs magical is often not easily evident barring special senses doesn't mean i get a price difference due to the nature of the NND's counter being visible or not. IMX the most popular NNDS are ones with normally visible counters. As Gm of course, the frequency of "people i need to shoot who have the counter" is enough to make it play out correctly.

 

Arguably, the HERo system rules are a bit inconsistent on the subject. It can be worked into frequency on a more general sense, like the "silver isn't all that common but everyone knows about werewolves and silver" notion.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

I have dealt with a player that tried to use Limitations solely for the purpose of shaving points so the points could be spent elsewhere. And no, I didn't let him do it. But the real problem was (because this happened for more than one character this player tried to make) his conception of the character was too broad and he was trying to buy more powers than he had points for. Basically he was imagining every possible thing you could do with a given sfx and tried to do it, instead of scaling back and figuring out the source of the character's abilities and how they developed. So really the incongruous Limitations was the symptom, not the problem, and ultimately he ended up with better characters once the problem of character definition was resolved.

 

As for teleport being abusive, almost anything can be abusvie if the GM lets the character get away with it. I had a player in a AD&D game who was running a druid and wanted to have a pet chicken that could be trained for combat like a fighting rooster (I am not sure the term fighting **** is going to make it through the filters). Fine, the paladin had a hawk, the druid could have a chicken. Then he wanted to have a squadron of attack chickens because they were cheap to buy he could get 500 of them.

__________________________________________________________

"Them chickens is up to something, I know they is."

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

 

The difference I perceive is between "will the GM allow the character to have this ability?" and "Is this a build that the GM will permit to be used to achieve this ability?" Your argument seems to be that it is inappropriate to allow the character with megascale teleport to be able to transport an unwilling target without paying for UAA. However, the issues you raise are just as problematic - no more and no less - if the character pays for UAA.

Actually, this is one case where that may well be a NO. In order for this to work, the character needs more than just the UAA teleport. Additionally, no reasonable SFX allows the megascale to have carry other" but not the main which means the cost goes up noticeably due to UAA. those extra points spent start cutting into the point he will need for being good enough with the grab to make the whole thing work.

 

If he gets UAA after grab for free, he can spend those extra points on "really good at grabbing" where as if he dumps a load of points into "UAA on my teleport" he cannot get the whole grab thing to work.

 

Additionally, with UAA, he has to define reasonable "wount work if" which the free teleport doesn't carry with it, or at least, no one who has said "have it for free" hasd added into their description yet.

I don't have the books in front of me, so I'll take your word that noncombat movement means 1/2 DCV. I'd still call that a target of opportunity.

i looked it up before replying. PDF HERO 5er is handt

I would rather say we are either disalllowing use of either flight or teleport to transport an unwilling target, even if they have been grabbed, or we are allowing either movement power to be used to transport an unwilling target who has been grabbed. I'm not arguing that either is, or is not, game-breaking. I am arguing that they are both equally game-breaking, or non-game breaking, and so it makes sense that the rule be the same for both.

I can buy the house rules to let teleport work like every other kmovement power in this regard. But there are some differences.

 

With the other movement powers, you have to lift your enemy after a grab. Wiuth teleport, the mass is irrespective of your strength. Slight difference.

 

Secondly, teleport has several advantages over most movements including the no line of sight needed so you can pass thru walls and such. I can pop into guard HQ using teleport but with flying i gotta go thru doors and such which likely means i don't get there in one fell swoop with NCM.

 

Is it possible that one reason you have to pay for "grab and carry" with teleport is to offset these other advantages cost wise?

 

And thus the solution is that if you find the ability to be game breaking, it should be disallowed.

agreed, but i didn't say it was game breaking, just maybe not something to be allowed as a house rule for free. I am not questioning actually whether someone should be allowed to grab and teleport someone elsewhere... merely that it may be wise to keep to the rules and charge extra for it.

 

Put another way, it seems like there is a potentially big difference between the "teleport willing only" and "teleport unwilling too". In your games, where teleport unwilling is the default by the house rules, how big a lim would you allow "willing only" teleporters?

As you say - it is just as reasonable, just as clever, and/or just as game-breaking to use Teleport in this fashion as it is to use any other movement power in this fashion. Thus, there is no reason to single Teleport out as the only movement power which cannot be used to move an unwilling target who has been Grabbed.

This would be true if one considers all other aspects of the movement powers to be equal. They aren't. teleport allows passing thru walls. teleport takes extra time for NCm while others don't. teleport allows mass adders for passengers and doesn't allow any passengers for free, while others are different.

 

About the only thing teleport has in common with the other powers is cost per hex. how many of these other differences should be there, just like the "must pay extra for unwilling" shouldn't be there?

 

I agreed with Chris that the problem (if there is one) is in the ability, not the mechanics by which the ability is constructed. Either all of these types of characters, including the teleporter, should be disallowed, or all of them, including the teleporter, should be allowed. Changing the power from "teleport" to "flight", or vice versa, does not change its potential ability to break the game.

 

I point out again, I NEVER suggested they should be disallowed, merely that for teleport house ruling "unwilling after grab" for free which seems wuite popular opens some potentially potent options. That then brought out the chorus of "so dont allow it".

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

As an aside or maybe back to the matter...

 

is anyone in favor of the way the rule as written works: teleport passengers only if willing and must buy some form of UAA to get unwilling passengers?

 

Just curious. The whoel issue certainly goes away if everyone, including perhaps the authors, really intends for "carry unwilling" to be free.

 

Personally, for me, i would consider a more "legal" notion to be

 

+1 UAA on teleport

then -1/2 only with grab

to do the trcik mostly though i could be tempted to give "must go with them" an additional -1/4 tho -0 for that when used with "with grab" sounds about right.

 

For a 40 pt teleport, the former raisies it to 80 Ap, and 54 RP for a gain of only 14 cp over the normal "no unwilling" version.

 

the latter still has 80 AP but a final cost of only 46 cp.

 

If i assume a teleport multipower then the price of doing "unwilling after grab" is gonna play in at around 8+15 cp give or take. I don't find that "prohibitively expensive.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

BTW i would question this for two reasons, one GMing based and another rules based.

 

GMing based... the Gm determines whether or not exciting things happoens on tuesday or on wednesday. your normal hero does not control when the bad guys strike and when he needs his powers. Scripting is in the hands of the GM. Similarly, a character vulnerable to fire WILL do everything he can to avoid fire, and one vulnerable to electricity will not knowingly rush into a transformer station and so on. ...

Yes, but the character knows that it's Tuesday when he wakes up in the morning and looks at his calendar. He has no way of knowing in advance that he'll run into Fire Guy who will then hole up at a transformer station. If my powers don't work at night, then I won't go out adventuring at night; as a player, I'll just use a different character. If I'm vulnerable to fire, all I can do is hope I don't have to deal with fire, and if it turns out I do, then I have to figure something out.

 

If fireboy decides he wont patrol the harbor and bay areas and will limit his patrol flights to over land, would you charge him more points too?

No. Eventually, every villain with half a brain will learn that Fireboy doesn't like water, so they'll do all their criminal activity near the harbor. Dr. Verybad will build his secret base underwater. The Menacing Mauler will just run to the beach whenever he has to get away from Fireboy. Sure, Fireboy will plan on not going near water, but he has no way of knowing in advance what will be required of him. Unless there's a villain that can Transform Today into Tuesday, Not-on-Tuesday-Man won't be as limited. Yes, he might get into a long battle on Monday night, and his gun will turn into a pumpkin at midnight; or something might still happen which he can't avoid on a Tuesday, such as a DNPC kidnapping; so it's still worth some limitation. But normally, he won't even suit up on Tuesdays.

 

Rules Based: Consider that visibility of the trait is not normally considered in HERO costing for some things. I can have NND (not vs force fields) and NND (not vs this or that life support) and NND (not vs mutants) ...

NNDs are a separate issue. The "not vs." of an NND is not a limitation. It must be "reasonably common" which could mean many different things. The GM then determines how often a target meets the immunity criterion. Regardless of whether it's visible, the character has no way of knowing in advance whether the opponent(s) he will face that day are immune.

[Robyn]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Basically he was imagining every possible thing you could do with a given sfx and tried to do it' date=' instead of scaling back and figuring out the source of the character's abilities and how they developed.[/quote']

 

An 8d6 Energy Blast (SFX: Fire) can be used to destroy water, but when water is destroyed with fire, it creates steam. Steam is not within the comfortable operating parameters for a human being. Does the character not create the steam, or does the steam just not do damage, or is that effect provided as a freebie?

 

I would state that the player should put the Energy Blast in a Multipower and use one slot for the 8d6 EB, but have another "all or nothing" slot for another EB, this time 4d6 Steam. The character can either do so much fire damage that the water is vaporized (so quickly it creates no steam), or vaporize half as much water but make it turn to steam.

 

Of course, this ignores the possible "Indirect" nature of the Steam attack (if I appear to miss you with a Fire blast to the ocean beside your deck, and then you get a blast of steam where you weren't expecting it, that's an automatic surprise and probably an automatic hit as well), the possible AOE on it, and that if the Fire is heating up the water less (just turning it into steam instead of instantly vaporizing it), shouldn't it affect more volume of the water?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

OK chalk another pair up for the "give it to them for free after a grab" group.

 

Question for those in that crowd...

 

Would this still be the case for a cheap, megasacle teleport that can get you into space? or maybe just around the world say?

 

A stretchy character with levels in grab and some fixed points in particularly intriguing locations would seem to be an intriguing character in a campaign with free "take the unwilling if you grab them" teleports.

 

BAMF... "Welcome to GUARD. Say hello to the nice gentlemen."

BAMF... "Welcome to the deep ocean. What? No water breathing or life support vs pressure/cold?"

BAMF..."Welcome to orbit."

BAMF..."Welcome to Moscow. I gotta go get back to the fight. See you later." followed by BAMF... "Welcome to deserted island somewhere in the pacific. Be back with friends to collect you shortly, once we finish your buddies."

 

???

 

I'm okay with that. Afterall, Megascale Teleport is considered non-combat, which puts the teleporter at 1/2 DCV. That and I'd probably not allow a character to take Fixed Locations in such places unless he had a really good reason.

 

Also, no one has ever tried.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Actually' date=' this is one case where that may well be a NO. In order for this to work, the character needs more than just the UAA teleport. Additionally, no reasonable SFX allows the megascale to have carry other" but not the main which means the cost goes up noticeably due to UAA. those extra points spent start cutting into the point he will need for being good enough with the grab to make the whole thing work.[/quote']

 

True, I assume the cost can be paid. Frankly, I'd much rather have the UAA Megascale teleport just send my opponent away than have to go with him and come back, at half DCV all the way.

 

Technically, your approach would require I buy my Megascale Teleport + UAA Teleport, which is more epensive, and which means my OCV becomes 0 since to use my own MS TPort, I must go noncombat. Which I can't do anyway since I can't use UAA, see whether it hits and then use my own movement power, since I have attacked and that ends the phase. What is the book legal construct you would suggest for a character who simply wants to be able to Grab an unwilling target and teleport with him?

 

Additionally' date=' with UAA, he has to define reasonable "wount work if" which the free teleport doesn't carry with it, or at least, no one who has said "have it for free" has added into their description yet.[/quote']

 

And there's no immunity to being grabbed by WingMan and carried off either.

 

I can buy the house rules to let teleport work like every other movement power in this regard. But there are some differences.

 

With the other movement powers, you have to lift your enemy after a grab. Wiuth teleport, the mass is irrespective of your strength. Slight difference.

 

True. I would require the character have a sufficient mass adder to carry the extra weight. I've never seen Nightcrawler teleport a sentinel, so he seems to be under a weight restriction.

 

Secondly' date=' teleport has several advantages over most movements including the no line of sight needed so you can pass thru walls and such. I can pop into guard HQ using teleport but with flying i gotta go thru doors and such which likely means i don't get there in one fell swoop with NCM. [/quote']

 

And Teleport gets no velocity adders to damage and no ability to inflict multiple move by's or the risk of injury a blind teleport carries. I don't see the movement abilities as unbalanced if one permits carrying an unwilling target by teleportation. I would also expect a book legal mechanic for teleporting myself and one or more unwilling others if this is intended as a balancing factor.

 

Put another way' date=' it seems like there is a potentially big difference between the "teleport willing only" and "teleport unwilling too". In your games, where teleport unwilling is the default by the house rules, how big a lim would you allow "willing only" teleporters?[/quote']

 

First, the character needs to have a good in-game basis why consent is required to teleport (a nice reference to the initial topic of the thread, by the way). Then, since I would only alow you to carry extra targets to the limit of your extra mass (a difference between Teleport and other movement powers), I would permit the limitation only on the adder, since your ability to Teleport is unimpaired. At that point, I think I'd consider -1/2 to be about right.

 

How much would you allow for Flight "can't carry anyone"?

[Manic Typist]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Can we take a step back and ask what exactly the differences are between the flight/grab combo and the teleport/grab that allows the former to be ok and the latter to be questionable?

 

To me, the biggest two is that: 1) a teleport can cross the same distance as a flight, but in a fraction of the time and avoid many barriers, and 2) the target has no opportunity in the meantime to struggle and stop the relocation until AFTER the movement has been completed (i.e. he can't bash Hawkgirl in the skull so that he drops him after 10 feet), and the companions of the target have no way of knowing where he has gone.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Can we take a step back and ask what exactly the differences are between the flight/grab combo and the teleport/grab that allows the former to be ok and the latter to be questionable?

 

To me, the biggest two is that: 1) a teleport can cross the same distance as a flight, but in a fraction of the time and avoid many barriers,

True, but it's the same whether or not you're holding onto someone at the time.

 

and 2) the target has no opportunity in the meantime to struggle and stop the relocation until AFTER the movement has been completed (i.e. he can't bash Hawkgirl in the skull so that he drops him after 10 feet), and the companions of the target have no way of knowing where he has gone.

 

Not true.

 

Attacker takes a Phase to Grab his target. Target immediately gets to resist usng Casual STR. Next Phase the attacker can teleport, taking the grabbed target along. Just like with Flight or Running (among other Movement Powers), if the target has a Phase inbetween the attacker's two Phases, he can use that Phase to try to escape or attack back. Also, if the attacker is using non-combat movement with the Teleport, he must wait an additional Phase, at 1/2 DCV, before he teleports.

 

Anyways, I created a new poll/thread to discuss this very thing, so I'm heading over there for any further discussion on this topic.

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

Yes, but the character knows that it's Tuesday when he wakes up in the morning and looks at his calendar. He has no way of knowing in advance that he'll run into Fire Guy who will then hole up at a transformer station. If my powers don't work at night, then I won't go out adventuring at night; as a player, I'll just use a different character. If I'm vulnerable to fire, all I can do is hope I don't have to deal with fire, and if it turns out I do, then I have to figure something out.

 

 

First off... am i understanding you right that in your game, players get to decide which character of their apparently multiple PCs they will play after learning the nature/timing or other details of the missions?

 

FWIW, in any RPg I have ever ran, the charcter you played was a set thing, you ran one character (except for some early DND games where everyone had two PCs but ran both) and if you decided your HERo did not want to go on a mission, that was that. there was no "other character i can fill in with in order to dodge my disads."

 

But given the style of game you seem to be describing, I can FULLY understand why you would be feeling that some predictable conditional limitations should be priced lower.

 

In my games, the PCs are (talking superheroes here) not as in control of when things they need to respond to happen and heroes even get engaged on their off days.

 

So, i have less of a problem with them than perhaps you do, due to our siffering styles in games.

 

Man, i gotta say, I don't know how i would even react to a player wnting to have two characters and chose the one when the other's disads kick in. "No" for sure but laughter, incredulity, and so forth would also be likely.

[tesuji]

Re: Is "Its cheaper this way" enough for you?

 

How much would you allow for Flight "can't carry anyone"?

 

Assuming the SFX had such a lim make sense, then maybe -1/4, but if the character's strength or OCv was lower thyan normal, so making grabs unlikely, then perhaps down to just SFX.

 

I would NOT allow it to be written as a penalty on strength "lockout: cannot carry while flying" as a not use strength sort of thing for the "tail of two tails" reason.

 

then again, having fliers catch falling people is a comic staple both in the comics and in my games, so a couple splats would be in order.