Doesn't know his own Strength...?

[Foxiekins]

Has anyone made a character that doesn't know his own Strength, possible because of a recent origin... Accidentally wrecking stuff without meaning to...?

 

Any suggestions on how to do it in game...?

[OddHat]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

A Physical Limitation works well for this. Infr, Gr, and the GM can demand a dex roll once per scene to see if the character accidently wrecks something.

 

Unluck works as well.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

I agree with Oddhat's recommendation of Physical Limitation. From the great Master List of Limitations, the Physical Lim, "Crushing Grip" sounds like the closest precedent for modelling what you want.

[alexraccoon]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

How about a skill roll to use the characteristic, if they fail you merely apply a greater amount of strength eg they go to open a door and take of the handle or rip the door off its hinges or they pat someone on the back and have to take them to the emergency room.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

How about a skill roll to use the characteristic' date=' if they fail you merely apply a greater amount of strength eg they go to open a door and take of the handle or rip the door off its hinges or they pat someone on the back and have to take them to the emergency room.[/quote']

 

 

I'm a little leery of making someone spend points on a drawback.

 

I go the Physical Limitation route, myself.

[Silbeg]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

A Physical Limitation works well for this. Infr, Gr, and the GM can demand a dex roll once per scene to see if the character accidently wrecks something.

 

Unluck works as well.

 

Agreed, Oddhat!

 

Check out UB 48 for the wite up of Doesn't Know His Own Strength - they have it at Freq/Slight (10)

 

I like the idea of unluck as well. Good call, that.

[Foxiekins]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

Hmmm... I like the sound of Unluck, except I'm already contemplating that for something else... The character I'm contemplating was under the influence of a somewhat hare-brained mage at some point, and she cast so much magic on him that the residual spell threads eventually settled into a chaotic pattern on their own...

 

Thus, weird and bizarre things keep happening to him because of the influence, as well as the effect giving him a STR and CON of 80, BODY of 20, and Armor 20 as well...

 

So his life is incredibly "interesting" in the oriental sense of the word, as well as him being cursed with the "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" effect...

[Foxiekins]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

I was also trying to figure out if the Side Effects Limitation would do what I wanted, but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work... Strength really doesn't have an Activation Roll... HTH attack rolls, yes, but what about all the out of combat STR uses that don't involve a 3d6 roll at all...?

[Silbeg]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

I was also trying to figure out if the Side Effects Limitation would do what I wanted' date=' but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work... Strength really doesn't have an Activation Roll... HTH attack rolls, yes, but what about all the out of combat STR uses that don't involve a 3d6 roll at all...?[/quote']

 

You could use the X2 adder to the Side Effects that cause to always happen every time the power is used.

 

Of course, this would then always happen, so you'd probably only want to use it for a certain portion of the STR. In general, though, I think that a side-effect on STR would be a Bad Thing.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

I was also trying to figure out if the Side Effects Limitation would do what I wanted' date=' but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work... Strength really doesn't have an Activation Roll... HTH attack rolls, yes, but what about all the out of combat STR uses that don't involve a 3d6 roll at all...?[/quote']

 

Why not just customize Side Effects to say the character needs to make some kind of a roll to avoid the side effect. His STR still "activates", so he doesn't get a limitation for Activation Roll or Requires a Skill Roll, but if he fails to make a DEX roll (or an INT roll, or whatever you feel is appropriate), he misjudges the application of his STR.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

Why not just customize Side Effects to say the character needs to make some kind of a roll to avoid the side effect. His STR still "activates"' date=' so he doesn't get a limitation for Activation Roll or Requires a Skill Roll, but if he fails to make a DEX roll (or an INT roll, or whatever you feel is appropriate), he misjudges the application of his STR.[/quote']

 

Side note ... unless those Side Effects are going to apply to the character's PD, REC and STUN as well somehow, the limited STR won't affect the character's figured characteristics.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

Side note ... unless those Side Effects are going to apply to the character's PD' date=' REC and STUN as well somehow, the limited STR won't affect the character's figured characteristics.[/quote']

 

I'd likely handwave that, but technically I believe that's correct. if I wasn't prepared to handwave it, I'd at least allow No Figured in addition to any other limitations.

[Foxiekins]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

I'd likely handwave that' date=' but technically I believe that's correct. if I wasn't prepared to handwave it, I'd at least allow No Figured in addition to any other limitations.[/quote']

 

Hmmm... Maybe 50 STR and +30 STR with Side Effects and No Figured...? And a Dex Roll in place of an Activation Roll... Hmmm... Wouldn't be all the time, though... Only when he wasn't using his full Strength, and flubbed the Dex Roll... I'd like it to be, say 5 STR extra for each point he failed the Dex Roll by, 30 STR extra if he failed it by 6 in other words, but offhand I don't recall any way to do that last bit...

[Wanderer]

Re: Doesn't know his own Strength...?

 

For combat and attack powers this effect is rather easy to simulate: simply tag an Activation Roll (IMO anything from 12- to 14- works fine, depending on how clumsy/inexperienced you want your super to be), plus a Severe Side Effect (environment only), for all of the character's Attack Powers, including STR, which should all or almost entirely bought as a Power for this purpose. For non-combat situations, add a Phys Lim "Loses control of attack powers when upset/distracted", Frequency and Severity to be adjusted depending on how much of a stress is necessary for the character to lose control of powers, and severity on how much damage does he cause (leaving indentations in steel is far less severe than blowing up cars).

 

UBr has a similar Phys Lim, while UMet has some guidelines about triggers for unwanted transformations that can easily adapted.

 

"Characters losing control of powers under stress" is classical trope of the genre for all kinds of characters from bricks to energy controllers to psis to metamorphs. Almost all attack powers (including STR) work fine with this construct, so do many movement powers (e.g. Flight and Teleport) and body-affecting powers (Shapeshift, Multiform, Growth, Shrinking). For non-attack powers the Side Effect should be reworked as something that temporarily puts the character at a disadvantage or embarasses him.