TK AoE

[TaxiMan]

Two recent rulings from Steve seem to be at odds with each other. Earlier, when asked how much weight an Area of Effect TK power could lift, he replied it was the same as the STR of the TK.

 

His latest question asked how AoE TK hit and grabbed multiple people. He replied that the victims are damaged by and must fight against the TK STR.

 

So in one case, you have to apportion out your TK STR over an area, and in the other you can apply the STR to multiple objects simultaneously.

 

Doesn't this seem inconsistent? I'd like it better if AoE TK could apply its STR against each hex simultaneously - what do you think? Is there a game balance problem with that?

 

P.S. (attempt to nip some flames in the bud) I understand "official rulings" and am not trying to dispute them. I greatly respect the efforts Steve makes and am thrilled at the current state of Hero Games.

[SuperBlue]

Tough one...

 

One the one hand, paying the extra +1 for an AoE SHOULD allow you to affect EVERYTHING in the area with full STR.

 

However, it also makes sense that the STR has to be rationed off.

 

I would go for 20 TK STR with an area of Effect Radius, would exert 20 STR on everything with in the area. So if there are 2 people that weigh 400kg standing next to eachother, the 20 STR should be able to lift BOTH of them, not one or the other.

 

Just my $.02

[Lord Liaden]

I was one of the aforementioned questioners, and after looking at Steve's response to the second question, I can see that there are two effects being discussed here: lifting capacity and damage. Steve's ruling makes the damage capability of TK consistent with any other AoE attack power as far as its effect on multiple targets in the area of effect.

 

OTOH, his ruling re lifting actually fits well with how you would give the AoE Advantage to Strength for an extremely large character representing giant-sized hands. A giant could conceivably "swat" a whole area with his open hand, hurting everything in that area; but that Advantage would not give him the ability to lift any more than his Strength would normally allow. Since TK is essentially Ranged Strength, IMO this all hangs together pretty well.

[SleepyDrug]

I would allow a 20 str TK to effect the whole area with a 20 str. In an additional note, the selective addvantage would be necessary to be able to pick and choose targets.

[BlackCobra]

While the reasoning may change for different special effects, I think if TK is based on the idea that the character is projecting energy/force to lift and/or damage the target, then what happens when you apply the AOE advantage is that you go from having one such TK projection to having many. In effect, you go from having one lifting cable to having many lifting cables.

 

Now, because you only bought 20 STR TK (for instance), that means that any one of your "cables" is only capable of lifting or exerting 20 STR.

 

That's the way I think of it anyway, and I would like to think it might help others visualize how the Effect (or result) works in Hero.

[TaxiMan]

Having AoE TK limited to total lifting capacity = STR makes sense in your points. Where it might fail is in situations where TK AoE is used to model gravity powers or magnetic powers, etc.

 

In those cases, I don't want to have to add up the weight of all the appliances in a kitchen before deciding that "gravity" has been reduced by X %. It doesn't fit the concept.

 

So what would you propose for that?

[TaxiMan]

I don't really have a point with this post, just offering up food for thought.

 

For 60ap you could get:

40 STR TK - 6400 kg lift

20 STR TK AoE 3" radius - 400 kg lift, 19 hexes

16 STR TK AoE 10" radius - 230 kg lift, 271 hexes

 

Now, 19 hexes * 400kg = 7600 kg which isn't unreasonable for applying the "lift everything with full TK STR" concept.

 

BUT, 271 hexes * 230 kg = 62,330 kg ... Whoa! That would let you lift awesome weight IF it was incredibly huge. I have no idea if that's restrictive enough so that the "affect-each-hex" concept isn't broken here.

[TaxiMan]

[building up my post count here...]

 

I looked up a battleship, the Iowa. It's 362' long, 72' wide and 24' high and weighs 12,000 tons. A hex is about 37.5 sqft. Assuming the Iowa is 75% of the rectangle of length * width, it covers 0.75 * 362 * 72 = 19,550 sqft.

 

That's 521 hexes. About twice the size of that huge AoE in my previous post.

 

And 12,000 tons is about 11 million kilograms. WAAAAYYYYY more than the puny 62,330 kg of the huge AoE.

 

Hmmmmm..... So a big ship is about the right size, but weighs too much to lift by multiple orders of magnitude. There isn't too much in my "game world" that I could effectively use the "huge AoE" power on. Most would be small, and thus severely limit total lifting. Anything big enough and it would weigh too much.

 

I'm feeling more like it isn't unbalanced after all.

[TaxiMan]

OK, last post for a while.

 

I contend that AoE on TK could, with the right SFX, be considered as affecting each hex with STR without unbalancing the power.

 

There. That should be clear enough.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by TaxiMan

OK, last post for a while.

 

I contend that AoE on TK could, with the right SFX, be considered as affecting each hex with STR without unbalancing the power.

 

There. That should be clear enough.

 

Clear as crystal. And as Steve Long has said often enough, special effects and common sense should always be taken into account if they dispute the letter of the rules. Personally I would have no problem with you as GM deciding that the lifting capacity of a gravitic or magnetic field would be based on each hex affected; if what you're dealing with is a straight unidirectional raising of a group of objects, I could certainly see that approach as appropriate and much simpler to calculate than dividing up the strength of the TK among all the different objects. I would have some concern over some of the other things you could do with a large number of one hex or smaller objects once your Telekinesis has them in the air, though; throw them for example, or just drop them on top of people. That could make for a rather problematic attack maneuver if there's no total weight upper limit on the effect.

 

I think I'd need to ponder that scenario a bit longer before I comment further.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The way I see it, a 6D6 AoE Radius Energy Blast does 6D6 damage to everything within the Area of Effect, thus 30Str AoE Rad TK exerts 30 Str upon everything within the Area of Effect at the same time (all objects must fight against 30 Str, and as long as it weighs less than 1600kg, it can be lifted) otherwise, if treated differently, it is not the same as the AoE Advantage placed upon the 6D6 Energy Blast, and they should be costed differently.

 

My thoughts on the matter at hand.

[SuperBlue]

WARNING!! BRAIN FART!!!

 

TK with the Exploding advanatage :-D

 

No? Darn...

[TaxiMan]

Exploding TK? Perfectly reasonable in some circumstances.

 

Explosive TK, toward center only, represents some attractive force that falls off with distance.

 

Explosive TK, all in the same direction (e.g. "upwards") represents a gravity field that doesn't have a sharp edge, but gains power as you get closer to the center.

[BlackCobra]

Hmmm, maybe I'm missing the point, maybe your missing the point --- I don't know but somebody is missing something.

 

Just because your TK effects an area doesn't mean you can pick up everything that happens to be in that area -- just as with regular (non-AoE) TK you couldn't pick up anything so heavy you couldn't lift it.

 

I'm also missing the whole reasoning on adding up how much weight you're effecting simultaneously. Would you add up how many targets you hit with a 6D6 Radius attack and then add up all the dice together to determine how strong an attack it is?

 

I think what Steve is saying in his ruling is that the TK effects everything simultaneously, you lift what you can lift and anything else stays put. If you want to choose which specific objects in the area you pick up, you need Selective Target.

 

Anyway, hope that didn't come out gripey -- I'm just confused.

[TaxiMan]

Not gripey at all! Perfectly reasonable point, your TK power HAS to be described / limited somehow. I'm confused too, or I wouldn't have posted. Still, here's my take on the points you raise.

 

Lets see, if you do 6d6 to a bunch of stuff in an area, you don't add up all the dice. In fact, there is no limit to the number of dice - just imagine hitting a room full of paperclips! Each takes 6d6, and there's millions of them. Silly I know, but the point is made.

 

OK, so why do I add up how much I can lift? My AoE TK is limited, I can only lift (for argument's sake) 100kg in a hex. So I could lift 10 million paperclips in a hex, no more than that. But I can affect more hexes. That's where it might be weird.

 

Since there are paperclips in the adjoining hexes, I can't lift some of the 10 million in the first hex?

 

That is the core question.

 

If my TK is "a huge glowing green hand", then it makes perfect sense. I can't lift any more paperclips: my TK has an absolute limit of 10 million, no matter where they are.

 

But, if my TK is that I create water in an area, held there by a magical boundary, it no longer makes sense. First off, I couldn't lift a single paperclip, but we'll say that's just a limitation "only lifts items that float".

 

So now we're talking about corks. They're sized such that one cork weighs the same as a paperclip.

 

OK, now I fill up a hex and lift 10 million corks. My AoE is a 10" radius, which is 271 hexes. Why shouldn't my TK float 10 million corks in each hex?

 

I propose that it should.

[TaxiMan]

Since gravity, magnetism, electrostatic attraction, etc. are common it seems like there will be many reasonable requests for powers that can "float a boat". Big green hands are also common, so we can't play favorites.

 

There's a bunch of ways to approach this. One is to build a huge TK and limit it, so I can float those corks.

 

Another is to allow TK to affect each hex independently, and limit Green Lantern's hand.

 

Limitations are subject to abuse (sometimes), and so I'm hoping there's a better way.

 

How about we create a 5cp adder "TK affects AoE uniformly"? That way if you have a huge AoE multiplier (+2 for example), your adder costs more, like it should.

[Snarf]

Using how area effect usually alters damage powers as the precedent, I would say that the assumption is that area TK can affect everything there with 30 STR per item, with selective making it possible to not affect some things in the area. I think the big green hand is a limited form of the power.

 

Maybe the big hand power would buy the area affect one half or one quarter the cost. Or the price of explosion could be used as a guideline for how much a weakened form of area effect should cost and a new advantage called distributed effect (or whatever) could be bought instead.

[TaxiMan]

Nice ideas! Steve has stated in the Rules forum that TK AoE can only lift a TOTAL of what the STR could lift. So the official answer is available. I guess we're on our own to figure out how to make gravity powers work.

 

Officially, you need 1,000 STR TK AoE with the limitation "only to change gravity". That way you could float a herd of buffalo.

[Snarf]

That sounds balanced, but not very fun... Could you buy something like autofire or some other advantage to allow you to cheaply affect many targets?

[Lord Liaden]

For defining gravity powers and the like which may not conceptually have a weight limitation, you could try a different approach than Telekinesis; how about Flight, Usable on Others as an Attack, Area of Effect? I don't think that mechanic requires a particular Strength to lift something, although you might apply that as a Limitation.

 

For floating objects in water, you could use the same construct but substitute Swimming for Flight.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

I hate to be the party pooper on such a fascinating subject (especially one that I've had problems with before), but I'm going to offer a few things for your consideration -- things pretty much right out of FREd.

 

For 'mass AoE lifting': Change Environment is built to do this, and in fact has the specific adder '5 AP per point of TK STR'. The last 'Gravitar' example displays this, a basic low-level magnetic field that acts as a 0 STR TK to pull ferrous metal objects straight up. As described, this is clearly a matter of 'X Strength is applied individually to each and every item in the field'.

 

For 'manipulate anything in the field': considering that TK is, by its nature, particular AND manipulative of the objects, an AoE TK should be considered as innately 'Selective Target' as it is inherently 'Indirect'; if you didn't grab the specific object you want, well then put it down. If you want to lift and manipulate all of these items, however, then you are going to be limited to your AoE's Strength maximum; a 20 Str TK AoE is going to be able to lift 400kg, whether that's pianos or ping-pong balls. The difference is that you'll be able to manipulate them both equally well -- whether it's playing two pianos or swirling 200,000 ping-pong balls.

 

For damage, I think that's pretty clear; X Str damage to each and every item. You aren't lifting it, you're just damaging it. In case of an AoE TK Grab, however, I would say that the X Str applies to each individually UNTIL they manage to coordinate their efforts -- i.e. try to break free at the same time, at which point the Held people's Str has to overcome the TK Str appropriately. (A 20 Str AoE TK could thus hold 5 people with 10 Str relatively easily until they coordinated their efforts, thus 'straining' with a 21-22 Str.)

 

If the power in question doesn't/shouldn't have 'weight limitations' by its concept of changing the way an area works, then don't go with TK; go with Change Environment. That's what it's for.

[Snarf]

What would you do to turn the power non-selective, as in using the big green hand? Limited TK? Change Environment with varying effect?

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Depends on what you want the effect to be, of course. If it's just 'make everything go up/left/right/whatever', Change Environment. If you want it to be more a 'scoop everything up/no manipulation', I'd modify 'Affects Whole Object (-¼)' from the TK disads as an area-of-effect disad. Instead of making a bazillion 'to hit' rolls, you just make the one (for the AoE), but you of course only lift/shift/throw what your TK Str can, in total. Thus, if you have a TK MPow, it becomes:

 

Big Green Scooping Hand:

20 Str TK, Area of Effect (Radius) (+1) (60 Active Points), Affects Whole Area Equally (-¼): 48 Points.

 

Because a) you haven't bought Fine Work with it and you DID take the 'Affects Whole Area Equally' disad, you're pretty much 'stuck' with a simple lift-and-throw. Which, if all you can lift is metallic objects and the area happens to be filled with ball bearings or razors, isn't necessarily a bad thing....