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Powers That Shouldn't Have Been Approved


Elysea

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Originally posted by Captain Obvious

Pre-4th Autofire attacks had an inherent +4 OCV built in. There was also an adjustment to the range modifier, but I don't remember if it was beneficial or not....

Autofire also was 10 shots by default.

 

Before 4th edition range mods started at -1 OCV per 3" of range.

Autofire halfed that, so you'd be at -1/2".

Area Effects also halfed, so a autofire AE would be -1/1".

 

You could add levels before any of the halving happenned. I don't think the rule for you could only miss by half the distance had been adopted yet.

 

We had the Box 'O' Missiles â„¢ which was usually some Nd6 Explosive, Autofire, 20 shots.

We had a system of figuring out where the misses would go that made it way more random.

 

Hmm, I think that was one of the reasons we allowed the dive for covers to be figured After the landing points were determined. :)

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Bad, bad, bad

 

Ok -- I can claim two such powers, both from the same player (he oopsed, largely) and both radically changed the nature of the campaigns.

 

One: the character's mutant ability allowed him to mimic the mutant abilities of others. Any others. This was done with a variable power pool for the powers and a series of Aids to various things (characteristics, powers). We did not at that time realize how obnoxious Aid could be. In a Danger Room scenario, this character (having a little time to prepare) powered up. He then cleaned the clock of all the members of the opposing team. The character was a little old monk guy (lesson #2 of Martial Arts Movies: always beware the little old guy). The player voluntary retired the character not long after that.

 

Two: character had the mutant ability to "fix" or "enhance" devices. This was purchased as a Transform (BBB) any object into more useful object (I believe it was Major). Essentially it made him a super gadgeteer. And it also meant that any technology near him could be warped to whatever end he needed. Open the Super Prison cell door from the inside? Sure! Fix the alien computer? Sure! Secretly run the base from my cell phone? Sure! I think it lead to my campaign having a more mystical theme. (Yeah, gadget this, pal!)

 

It helped that the player was particularly gifted at using the power extremely effectively.

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Originally posted by Storn

I inadvertently came up with the agent-killer supreme.

 

A trained marine with the mutant power of a silent teleport (invisible sfx, sight and sound... one minute he is there, next second he ain't). Armed him with a HK MPSpd3... submachine gun with a silencer. And armor piercing bullets.

 

The guy was freakin' scary. Not so good vs. big, paranormal villains .. he just didn't dish out high amounts of damage. (but makes for a great distraction dude and there is the ol' jump behind villain, slap demo charge... buh bye!)

 

I ... am SO glad my players don't read these boards. And I am so gonna use this guy in my 'Suddenly, Mutants' Dark Champions-esque campaign...

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I've been a fairly good (read: paranoid) GM over the years, so not too many things have slipped past. Some examples:

 

  • The "spiky tentacle": an amorphous TK-like effect which could be used for FF, sensing (an AOE Clairsentience) and an invisible RKA. The character could literally lie on the ground pretending to sleep while people around him dropped like flies. Fortunately, this was in a combat-heavy Champs game so it was not as abusive as it would be in most games.
     
  • General defense balancing: allowing characters with a wee bit too much defense (usually 25% or 50% Damage Reduction plus Armor).
     
    Of course, some of the villains got pretty nasty too. :)
     
  • The standard 75 VPP villain, but back when we didn't know the rules, so you could a) switch VPP mid-Phase (switch VPP, move, switch again, attack); B) not count Advantages and Reduced END against the Active Point total.
     
  • A villain who could set up time/space warps around a character (Teleport UAA AOE Ring plus Force Wall); any attempt to leave teleports you back to the center, and approaching from the outside teleports you to the other side of the ring. I loved the concept, but realized it was so horribly abusive that the villain never saw the light of day. Alas.

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Originally posted by Geoff Speare

 

  • A villain who could set up time/space warps around a character (Teleport UAA AOE Ring plus Force Wall); any attempt to leave teleports you back to the center, and approaching from the outside teleports you to the other side of the ring. I loved the concept, but realized it was so horribly abusive that the villain never saw the light of day. Alas.

 

A friend of mine wanted to be able to do this exact same thing with his gate-teleporting martial artist. We built it as an Entangle with the hex-covering effect, and added in the Reflective (or Backlash, whatever it is, don't have my book) advantage and Blocks Sight Group. In effect, he covered the hex you were standing in with a dome-gate. Anywhere you looked, you saw the back of your own head. You could attack the teleportation dome, but if you failed to pour enough kinetic energy into the dimensional gate to destabalize it, your own fist or energy blast or whatever popped right out of the gate behind you and hit you in the back of the head. A strong enough attack would be too much for the gate to handle, and it would shatter.

 

Fun concept, the character hasn't been played yet though. :)

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Both from the same player:

 

Grizzly: A Brick with a Str Transfer. He'd grab you, and under the rules you could grab and attack. (After all, you can grab and squeeze for damage, or grab and throw in one phase). He started out with 65 STR, he'd transfer 15-20 points. Now he's got 85 STR and the target is 20 points below. So if they both started at 65 then it'd be a contest of STR to get out: 85 to 45 the first phase and only get worse from there. Basically, he'd grab a target and take them out of the fight.

 

Agent Zero: An agent level guy (20 Str). He had Invulnerability bought as Desolid-STR affects normal world. That sounded OK. He even had a blaster pistol ANW. Still OK, he can be taken out with gas attacks, psionics etc. and the DC's aren't too high. I failed to notice the belt jets with many, many NCM's on them. His idea was that he would do Non-combat move-throughs on his opponents, slamming into them with 2 or 3 hundred inches of velcoity. So what if he took half damage? He was immune! Of course, he never mentioned this tactic during character creation.

 

Keith "Older and Wiser" Curtis

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If he's doing a move-through with 2-300 inches of velocity, how the heck is he hitting anybody? Does he have dozens of 2 point levels or something? and if he's bought dozens of levels, how could you miss that?

 

besides that, desolid or no, he's taking the damage.

 

If you're desolid, you can always affect yourself. (hard to use his pistol, otherwise). Since he's the one doing the move-through, he always takes at least half damage because the STR used to inflict the move through affects him even if what he hits can't.

 

$0.02

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Originally posted by Elysea

You could attack the teleportation dome, but if you failed to pour enough kinetic energy into the dimensional gate to destabalize it, your own fist or energy blast or whatever popped right out of the gate behind you and hit you in the back of the head.

 

Heh heh heh...nice special effect on that one....

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Originally posted by BNakagawa

If he's doing a move-through with 2-300 inches of velocity, how the heck is he hitting anybody? Does he have dozens of 2 point levels or something? and if he's bought dozens of levels, how could you miss that?

 

besides that, desolid or no, he's taking the damage.

 

If you're desolid, you can always affect yourself. (hard to use his pistol, otherwise). Since he's the one doing the move-through, he always takes at least half damage because the STR used to inflict the move through affects him even if what he hits can't.

 

$0.02

 

Sorry, should have said "move-by".

 

Actually, that was the tack I took, claiming he should have taken damage. This led to a big argument and his refusal to play the character any more. (no loss)

 

Keith "no more munchkins, please" Curtis

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GMs around these parts have been known to be quite lax in knowing exactly what abilities their PCs have... part of what sometimes drives me nuts with my gaming group.
I think that's just bad Game Mastering. All my PC makes their character with me there. We work form concept, and build up from there. I know my world, so I know what will and will not work. The end result is I generally have all the PC character sheets memorized. If that's not possible for a GM then he/she should at least take the time to study the character first.

 

Off topic sorry. I just think if some one is going to take the time to run a game they should do it right.

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I never saw these ideas in play but I heard about them and thought..."That's just wrong".

 

1)Villain with mind control , one command only, to make target turn back into their sercret ID and stay that way.:eek:

 

2)Gravedigger:Tunnelling:UAA to put the poor sucker twenty hexes underground. Another variation would be a character having high STR with a martial grab and Tunneling with them underground and then leaving the victim there to suffocate.

 

As I said before...Thats just wrong. Thats not even good sportsmanship.

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Originally posted by WilyQuixote

2)Gravedigger:Tunnelling:UAA to put the poor sucker twenty hexes underground.

 

In a villain game I'm currently playing in, I build my Master Villain character's trap doors something like this. It always leads to a death trap. And no, so far no hero has ever died in one of my death traps. :) I sure thought those zombie electric eels would do the trick, but that accursed Professor Patriot has a secret ally, I just know it ...

 

-AA

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I never allowed Attack Tunnelling, though somehow I got it into my brain to allow AE Tunnelling, like a Sinkhole. Earthmaster in Classic Enemies had it. Of course, I was smart enough not to allow the 'close tunnel behind' option ...

 

One from an old friend's game ... Admiral Annihilation. He had a 1d6 EKA ... Autofire/20ed, triple-penetrating, 0End, a few other things, and enough Area Effect on it to cover the known expanses of the universe, triggered to go off when he took Stun. And several Susceptibilities so it was impossible for him NOT to take Stun. So ... punch Admiral, destroy universe. Except for the Admiral, who also had full Life Support and a little FTL, so he could find another world to blight. ;)

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Speaking of susceptabilities, I had a friend who drew up a character (Micron) who had Shrinking, really high defenses (including Mental and Power DEF), and life support. He also had Susceptible to oxygen (that's why he had the life support) and a bunch of other munchkin disads.

 

Basically, you practically couldn't find him, and even if you could, you could barely hurt him.

 

The GM said, "DENIED!"

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Originally posted by JmOz

approved, but outlawed right after game time:

 

5" Teleport, UAA, DS, Cont, 0 end, persistant, Megascale, 1 fixed location

 

Didn't ask about the fixed location, turned out to be strait up,...

I tried something similar once, except it was a Teleport damage shield. Wanna hit me? Go ahead. *poof*

 

One of my classic evil abuse of rules powers was doing this, except the teleport was just 5" total. Straight down.

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