Limited invulnerability

[Sean Waters]

OK, been done. This, however, approaches the problem fromt he other end and encourages gaming responsibility. Well, maybe.

 

Hero has, at heart, great flexibility. Not only can you do almost anything with it, given the points, but you can also do one thing in several different ways in many cases.

 

This means that producing a single effect can be done in a lot of different ways and this can make it extremely difficult to create logical defences against. Poison, chemicals, stuff like that, they just don’t really work with standard PD and ED, at least it seems that way to me. We had bottles of concentrated acid at school, all those years ago. The bottle did not have a particularly high PD or ED but would resist the acid.

 

You could build acid with NND…but it is not always done that way. I’ve seen drain mechanics, killing attacks…..whatever. This means that Joseph Glass, the chemically resistant man, has to buy an awful lot of defences potentially, to be acid resistant.

 

Now this is not a total solution by any means, but it does make building Joe Glass that bit easier.

 

We have a new limitation for attacks: Unusual Defence

 

The value depends on how common the defence is: it is a sort of reverse NND. Basically normal defences apply tot he attack BUT if the target has a specific defence then it does not effect the target at all.

 

So the limitation might range from –1/4 for something like ‘snake venom resistant’ to –1/2 for ‘any poison resistant’ to –1 for ‘has resistant defences’ (at least if it is a superhero campaign).

 

Most of the defences should be LS type defences. You might need to make up a few more, specifically chemical resistance – 1 point for acid resistance, 1 for alkali resistance and say 3 for resistant to all chemical attacks other than poisons.

 

OK it won’t solve the problem because it still requires thoughtful design BUT it does mean that you can now buy someone who can ignore acid without having to spend a shed-load of points in an unnecessarily complicated way.

 

I know also this is not really new – it is just a manifestation of the ‘Limited Power’ limitation, but naming it specifically might get it used more. Worth a try.

 

Thoughts?

[Lucius]

Re: Limited invulnerability

 

Uh oh! He used the "I" word!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Hiding behind the palindromedary

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Limited invulnerability

 

Uh oh! He used the "I" word!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Hiding behind the palindromedary

 

Sean's like that. He can't leave well enough alone...

 

 

 

 

Doc

[OddHat]

Re: Limited invulnerability

 

Not a bad idea, and it fits nicely with the related option of limiting the power of weapons with the "Real Weapon" limitation to get through armor without the "Real Armor" limit.

 

I think, rather than a limit, I'd prefer to see this treated purely as a defensive power, but that's just me. Let Mr.Invulnerable-to-Acid pay a relatively low set price (say 6 - 12 points for "All Acids") for the ability and be done with it.

 

Right now I'm inclined to use the Fantasy Hero approach and figure out what the highest DC of a particular attack is going to be in a given campaign, then allow armor purchased against that attack only at a deep discount (-2 for a rare SFX, -1 for a common SFX, -1/2 for a very common SFX).

[Sean Waters]

Re: Limited invulnerability

 

Sean's like that. He can't leave well enough alone...

 

 

 

 

Doc

 

What?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Limited invulnerability

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Yes, it's pretty much Limited Power.

 

A name change may or may not be good. For the majority of the players in my game, we make so much use of Limited Power we don't really need to rename it. For the kind of players that often overlook it, or only use the examples listed under it, creating a new example would be very helpful.