Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

[Erkenfresh]

Character A has a disadvantage "Physical Limitation: Doesn't Feel Pain". This is a disad because he's less likely to retreat from a losing fight, doesn't know his ankle is sprained and injures it more with further walking, etc.

 

Character B has a power called "Cause Pain" which is just an Ego Attack.

 

Now, Character B uses his Cause Pain power on Character A. I'm inclined to say that Character B takes absolutely no damage. Since he can't feel pain, the spell wouldn't hurt his STUN. But, this reasoning makes a disadvantage become an advantage.

 

What does HERO-forum-trolls-united think?

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Hummmm, intresting question. I have to think on that one.

[Robyn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

But' date=' this reasoning makes a disadvantage become an advantage.[/quote']

 

If the case were of an Advantage (or, Perk/Power) that the character paid (as opposed to received) points for, becoming disadvantageous, would you let the player selectively ignore the Special Effects they bought their power with, just to ensure that nothing bad happened as a result of something they paid points for?

 

Disadvantages and Powers may require Special Effects, but this doesn't mean that points were paid for (or earned by) them.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Does that character have any powers, like "Damage Reduction, Stun Only" that represent his inability to feel pain?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Depends.

 

Sometimes, yeah, a disad can work for you. How many times has Daredevil been able to ignore light-based attacks, hypnosis, etc. because he has Physical Limitation: Blind? Lots. But it still causes him problems when he needs to cut the blue wire.

 

In this instance, I'd say it depends on exactly why the character feels no pain. Is he a created entity, made without any capacity for things like pain and pleasure? If so, I'd say the Ego Attack as defined slides off him. If instead he's like (IIRC) the KGBeast, who had his nerve endings deadened so he wouldn't feel pain, I'd say he's still affected - the Ego Attack doesn't care what the nerve endings on the skin say, it's bypassing them and going straight to the pain centers of the brain.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

He still takes STUN, because his Body can still be hurt, nervous system overloaded.

 

It just never registers any of that with the reaction part of the brain - he'll never look like he was hurt because he doesn't, in fact, know he was actually hurt at all.

 

And I hope he bought some Powers (Damage Reduction, Defenses, high CON) to help represent that as well, otherwise he's probably looking at Psych Lim: Ignores All Pain

[Robyn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Does that character have any powers' date=' like "Damage Reduction, Stun Only" that represent his inability to feel pain?[/quote']

 

Conversely, does the character with Cause Pain have any Limitations on the power which state "only against entities that are capable of experiencing pain"?

 

My contention would be that it does - we could stat out every conceivable circumstance in which each of our powers would have greater or lesser effect (and the powers would become hideously complex in the bargain), but most of them would never occur in the foreseeable future. SFX lets us leave things simple, for the major highlights of general usage, and still leave in a backdoor for "common sense".

[OddHat]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Character A has a disadvantage "Physical Limitation: Doesn't Feel Pain". This is a disad because he's less likely to retreat from a losing fight, doesn't know his ankle is sprained and injures it more with further walking, etc.

 

Character B has a power called "Cause Pain" which is just an Ego Attack.

 

Now, Character B uses his Cause Pain power on Character A. I'm inclined to say that Character B takes absolutely no damage. Since he can't feel pain, the spell wouldn't hurt his STUN. But, this reasoning makes a disadvantage become an advantage.

 

Doesn't work. SFX can sometimes give small advantages, but this is an example of poor character design.

 

Captain Feels No Pain should have paid for extra defenses (PD, ED, Mental Def, maybe Damage Reduction) with the Stun Only limitation if he wanted actual protection from damage. Otherwise, though the SFX may be that he feels no pain, he still takes stun like everyone else.

 

To cite a similar case, someone who takes PhysLim: Made of Living Steel does not get Armor for free.

 

I would give the PC this much for his PhysLim; if an NND is defined as not working against someone immune to pain, the character is immune. Other than that, he needs to spend points.

[Narratio]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

I think it's a off situation, brought about by the GM in question running the scene. As a GM I'd have laid out the effects prior to the two characters meeting. I'm the GM, I'd know this was going to happen after all.

 

So, I'd call a GM special effect and say that the EGO attack could be said to make a temporary livening or rewire of the damaged old neural synapses as the brain itself has no pain receptors. Thus for randomly specified period, the character feels pain from all previously suffered damage. Probably this could be modeled with a halving of speed and dex?

 

However, for the attacker I'd declare that the feedback caused by the resistence to the special effect increases END cost by... say quadruple?

 

Hopefully the PC and the NPC avoid each other in the future?

[JmOz]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

You get what you pay for. In this case I as the GM would be monitoring his stun/body damage not him...

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

You get what you pay for. In this case I as the GM would be monitoring his stun/body damage not him...

 

Yes, that's part of the limitation too, the player doesn't know how much STUN and BODY he has left. This disadvantage provides no protection to attacks, the victim simply doesn't know he's been cut or bashed as severely as he has.

 

The campaign in question is a Fantasy Hero campaign. One of my players has a "Cause Pain" spell. A friend of mine wants to play someone delusional enough to think he's a god and I figured "feels no pain" would make sense for such a guy. I doubt the player will ever have to Cause Pain the quasi-god but you never know.

[KA.]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Character A has a disadvantage "Physical Limitation: Doesn't Feel Pain". This is a disad because he's less likely to retreat from a losing fight, doesn't know his ankle is sprained and injures it more with further walking, etc.

 

Character B has a power called "Cause Pain" which is just an Ego Attack.

 

Now, Character B uses his Cause Pain power on Character A. I'm inclined to say that Character B takes absolutely no damage. Since he can't feel pain, the spell wouldn't hurt his STUN. But, this reasoning makes a disadvantage become an advantage.

 

What does HERO-forum-trolls-united think?

 

This is one of those things where some people are going to seem too 'tight' and other people are going to seem too 'loose' as to how they interpret the rules, and ultimately each GM needs to:

 

1) Decide where they stand on this sort of thing

 

and

 

2) Tell the Players!

 

It isn't right to let a player design a character based on their interpretation of the rules, especially if they are doing things "by the book", and then have their character placed at a major disadvantage in the game because you do things some other way. It doesn't matter how you do things, as long as everyone knows.

 

However, with that proviso, here is my opinion on how I would do it.

 

A) "Feels no Pain" is a Disadvantage.

You get points for it.

It is not supposed to help you, in other than the rarest circumstances.

Which means it should, in general, not be a Defense for anything.

I am not sure that I would be hardnosed enough to actually make a blind character pay for Flash Defense for their Sight, but I might.

(I would, however, probably figure out a way to make it cost almost nothing.

Maybe something like "Always On", "Side Effect: Can't Make Perception Rolls for Vision", and whatever else would seem appropriate.)

 

If someone paid full price for an Ego Attack that was just defined as 'Causes Pain', there is no reason why it shouldn't work.

If it had some type of limitation on it that said the recipient had to be able to feel Physical Pain, then I would probably say it didn't work, but otherwise, it would.

Why?

Well, for one thing, the person who bought it did not get a cost savings, so it isn't really all that fair to penalize them.

Also, let's say that Professor Painless the Daring Dentist has no ability to feel pain because he performed a root canal on himself that went horribly wrong.

He can still remember what pain felt like.

An Ego Attack might affect him by causing him to recall in horrible detail that paper cut he got in the Second Grade, but magnified 100 times.

It might cause him to feel 'phantom pain' like people do in limbs that are no longer attached.

It could cause him to suffer shock by thinking about how terrible the pain he has heard others describe must be.

It is an Ego Attack.

It affects the Mind.

The pain part is incidental.

For that matter it could cause him to believe that for some reason his ability to feel had been restored and that the process itself caused him horrible pain.

 

I am just saying that you shouldn't hand out Defenses, especially those that make someone immune to an attack, just because someone took a Disadvantage.

 

If you start down that road, a few clever Disadvantages could make a character almost Invulnerable.

 

Since it is relatively hard to kill someone in Hero, a person with:

Physical Lim : Feels no Pain (immune to a lot of Ego and NND attacks)

Psych Lim : Extremely Skeptical (immune to a lot of Mind Control, Mental Illusions, Presence based Attacks, etc.)

Psych Lim : Thinks he is Unstoppable (immune to Ego Based Entangles)

Physical Lim : No Solid Physical Form (immune to most regular Entangles)

Could be practically unstoppable, and they haven't even spent any points yet, actually they have gained points.

 

Now I am sure my esteemed colleagues can point out plenty of ways to stop the character above, but all I am saying is that letting Disadvantages be used as Defenses is a slippery slope indeed.

 

KA.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

While it's possible for a Disad to become advantageous, I'd question the pricing of the disad if this happens too often. In the case of the "Cause Pain" vs "Can't Feel Pain", i'd either slap a limitation on the former or have it stimulate the latter's dormant pain sensors.

 

The Daredevil Flash example is flawed, in my opinion. A Sight Flash has no impact on DD just like a Running Drain has no effect on Professor X - there's nothing there to affect. A character who had DD's other senses, and eetained his sight, would be no less disadvantaged by a sight Flash - and he spent points on those enhanced senses.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Look at the SFX of the attack, of the Disadvantage, and the possible rammifications towards game balance.

 

Then decide.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Conversely, does the character with Cause Pain have any Limitations on the power which state "only against entities that are capable of experiencing pain"?

 

My contention would be that it does - we could stat out every conceivable circumstance in which each of our powers would have greater or lesser effect (and the powers would become hideously complex in the bargain), but most of them would never occur in the foreseeable future. SFX lets us leave things simple, for the major highlights of general usage, and still leave in a backdoor for "common sense".

 

And I would never, under any circumstance, allow such a Disad to completely void someone else's otherwise unhindered attack.

 

It's not just SFX of "Feel Pain"/"Cause Pain" - there is an underlying mechanic that must be obeyed in the name of playability of the Game - otherwise switch to Amber where Mechanic like this are minimal at best.

 

It has to be WHY does he have this Physical Disadvantage, and is it designed properly? My answer is - probably not.

 

There's a big difference between "no pain gets through" and "no damage gets through." Just because the logic center refuses to recognize the pain as a danger (i.e. refuse to feel it) does not mean the body itself cannot go into system shock.

 

In fact - I'm going to pull from First Aid training here. When a body goes into Shock and the person dies they don't actually feel much in the way of pain (beyond any injury that may have caused the condition). What they feel is Hot (all the blood rushes to the extremeties) and Cold (all the blood ruches to the center of the body) - do that twice and you reach near 100% fatality rate. The body isn't "feeling pain" but it sure as heck is reacting to a percieved condition it is trying to repair.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

While it's possible for a Disad to become advantageous, I'd question the pricing of the disad if this happens too often. In the case of the "Cause Pain" vs "Can't Feel Pain", i'd either slap a limitation on the former or have it stimulate the latter's dormant pain sensors.

 

The Daredevil Flash example is flawed, in my opinion. A Sight Flash has no impact on DD just like a Running Drain has no effect on Professor X - there's nothing there to affect. A character who had DD's other senses, and eetained his sight, would be no less disadvantaged by a sight Flash - and he spent points on those enhanced senses.

 

Indeed, one of my characters has enhanced Smell and prefers to rely on that scent over sight. In fact they have been flashed, had images used against them and caught in a Sight Darkness field, as well as just plain been in the dark underground. And in each case their sight was lost but it hardly mattered to them.

 

So sure, DD can't be affected by Flashes (et al) but neither can anyone else who kept their sight and bought other cool senses with it.

[Kenn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

The guy who feels no pain falls stunned or unconscious from the Ego Attack, but has no idea why, since he didn't feel the pain. But he still loses the stun.

[tesuji]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

I am in the camp of "example of bad chargen".

 

Feel no pain is a defense, only to block stun, etc, with a side effect (feels no pain") which i would place rather little value on myself, maybe -1/4 etc.

 

i think i recall an automaton power which basically boils down to "takes no stun damage" and there is where i would start.

[Robyn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

I am not sure that I would be hardnosed enough to actually make a blind character pay for Flash Defense for their Sight, but I might.

(I would, however, probably figure out a way to make it cost almost nothing.

Maybe something like "Always On", "Side Effect: Can't Make Perception Rolls for Vision", and whatever else would seem appropriate.)

 

So, instead of keeping the powers and Disadvantages separate, incorporate the Disadvantages into the powers as a Limitation?

 

KA. is correct that the GM needs to figure out what will be done in such cases, and then notify the players in advance. My recommendation is to say:

 

"We didn't prepare for this specific eventuality because we didn't want to spend 3 years coming up with contingencies for every conceivable interaction of powers, but common sense says that your character would be immune to this attack, so we'll stat it out now and you'll have to pay for it later as you earn the XP."

 

Actually, this build would be more appropriate for characters who were resistant to an attack; defenses alone don't convey actual immunity (unless, not to give us all flashbacks to the Invulnerability threads, no attack in the campaign can exceed them), so the character with the attack power should receive the appropriate Limitation on it - and then, give XP to this character equal to the difference between the old and recalculated cost.

[Jhamin]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

While I agree that "feels no pain" as a disad it probably a bit broad, I don't want to out of hand reject disadvantages occasionally paying off.

 

For example: One of the prominent characters in my game has Dist Features: "Unique across all dimensions." The background is that this character, for a variety of reasons, doesn't exist in any alternate reality, just this one. I gave it a distinctive feature vs. unusual senses because people like Skarn, Cpt. Chronos, and Ist'Vatha definitely pick her out of a crowd.

 

The character has no dimensional powers beyond her lack of alternates. As my game is set squarely on Earth and rarely involved dimension hopping I didn't feel it was an advantage worth points. Its just a neat bit of flavor, and only about 5 points as a DF. All was well.

 

 

 

Then I picked up Teen Champions and read up on Janus. The guy who summons an evil you from an alternate dimension to fight you.

 

Logically my example character should be immune to this ability, even though there is really no defense against a summon. In my mind, the disad isn't abusive and having one character in existance who is immune to Janus is interesting.

 

Or am I missing something?

[Robyn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

I am in the camp of "example of bad chargen".

 

This may be true. (I would go for "example of players/GM not wanting to go through excessively complicated chargen", myself.) But the real question is this: do we want to break the character concept just because the points weren't all lined up in advance? Or can we play the game by the concepts, and fix the points to match?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

This may be true. (I would go for "example of players/GM not wanting to go through excessively complicated chargen"' date=' myself.) But the real question is this: do we want to break the character concept just because the [i']points[/i] weren't all lined up in advance? Or can we play the game by the concepts, and fix the points to match?

 

You have to do both.

 

Disad: Feels No Pain is either Bad Chargen (point fishing for the Disad That Helps) or Bad Implementation of Good Idea.

 

If you have a concept of a character who doesn't feel pain (or react to pain inflicted) that's fine - I have one such character. But you have to make mechanics match concept across the board.

 

If they really do feel no pain there is some definite advantages and disadvantages to that. They may be Overconfident (Psych Lim) and very hard to take down (high DEF). You have to match both mechanically.

 

You cannot, and should not, simply left the SFX of one aspect simply take over and control the mechanics and SFX of others. Physcal Lim: Feels No Pain as an way to ignore STUN Damage of "Inflicts Pain" (and really - what attack DOESN'T have that as itent? it's the basic function of attacking someone!!) is blatant abuse - Esecpially when you consider that the Power is a 40pt Automaton Only Power (Takes No STUN) that triples the cost of Defenses to boot.

 

No way in the nine hecks am I letting a PLAYER ignore STUN on anything for a Disadvantage that GAVE them points.

 

Flat out not happening. It may be an interesting role playing concept (you keep hitting him with your mental blasts but he just doesn't seem to notice or care!) but not a way to ignore someone else's attack.

[Robyn]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Physcal Lim: Feels No Pain as an way to ignore STUN Damage of "Inflicts Pain" (and really - what attack DOESN'T have that as itent? it's the basic function of attacking someone!!)

 

There is a difference between attacks that may cause pain as a result of damaging someone, and attacks that damage someone by generating pain. The concept of that attack power needs to be evaluated.

 

Since most characters experience pain, a build such as "Mind Control, Set Effect: Pain" with a Linked "Ego Attack, Only Up To Amount Rolled On MC" would (arguably) be more complex than necessary. It is much simpler to just stat it out as an Ego Attack with the SFX of "causes pain", and if a situation comes up that wasn't anticipated, rebuild the power. It probably wouldn't even take much; if the situation was that unusual in the first place (to not be accounted for when building the power), it might only qualify as a -0 Limitation, which wouldn't reduce the cost - just formally acknowledge an exception.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

Doesn't work. SFX can sometimes give small advantages, but this is an example of poor chacter design.

 

Captain Feels No Pain should have paid for extra defenses (PD, ED, Mental Def, maybe Damage Reduction) with the Stun Only limitation if he wanted actual protection from damage. Otherwise, though the SFX may be that he feels no pain, he still takes stun like everyone else.

 

To cite a similar case, someone who takes PhysLim: Made of Living Steel does not get Armor for free.

 

I would give the PC this much for his PhysLim; if an NND is defined as not working against someone immune to pain, the character is immune. Other and that, he needs to spend points.

 

Completely concur.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Disadvantage that becomes an advantage?

 

There is a difference between attacks that may cause pain as a result of damaging someone' date=' and attacks that damage someone [i']by[/i] generating pain. The concept of that attack power needs to be evaluated.

 

Since most characters experience pain, a build such as "Mind Control, Set Effect: Pain" with a Linked "Ego Attack, Only Up To Amount Rolled On MC" would (arguably) be more complex than necessary. It is much simpler to just stat it out as an Ego Attack with the SFX of "causes pain", and if a situation comes up that wasn't anticipated, rebuild the power. It probably wouldn't even take much; if the situation was that unusual in the first place (to not be accounted for when building the power), it might only qualify as a -0 Limitation, which wouldn't reduce the cost - just formally acknowledge an exception.

 

we'll just say that I, once again, completely and utterly disagree with you and how you interpret the game.