Least Abused Powers

[Wolfgar]

From anyone's personal experience, are there any powers that have a really bad reputation for being abused that rarely ever are? Something that the GM is expected to just comb over, even when it'll be perfectly safe 99% of the time?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

Nothing comes to mind. Of those that have a bad reputation, I've found that the house rule of "you can only buy it if I let you" keeps them in check. To be fair, I apply that rule equally to everything bought with Character Points.

[Vondy]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

VPP.

 

I've never had balance problems with it*. On the other hand, I have had players who didn't understand the rules and wanted to manage VPPs at run-time, which led to significant delay problems. As a result, I only allow powers from a pre-generated list that fit the campaign guidelines.

 

*I've always maintained it can't directly increase other abilities - only via aid and whatnot.

[Wolfgar]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

VPP.

 

I've never had balance problems with it*. On the other hand, I have had players who didn't understand the rules and wanted to manage VPPs at run-time, which led to significant delay problems. As a result, I only allow powers from a pre-generated list that fit the campaign guidelines.

 

*I've always maintained it can't directly increase other abilities - only via aid and whatnot.

 

 

It really looks more evil than it is, isn't it?

[Vondy]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

It really looks more evil than it is' date=' isn't it?[/quote']

 

Yep.

[Chessack]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

I agree about VPP. In principle it could potentially be quite abusive, and I have seen some attempts at seriously abusive things (the all-time prize winner has to be the guy who tried to put +3 overall levels - usable vs. others - uncontrolled/continuous into his VPP on the fly, and then before a battle, hit his whole team with it to give them all +3... and then pitched a fit when I disallowed it).

 

However, early bad experiences with VPP taught me a very simple lesson... inform the players that all VPP powers must be pre-approved. Allow them to maintain a list of a reasonable number of pre-fab powers (20-30 powers total) that "could" be put into the VPP. I always said that in save-the-world or emergency situations, if the VPP nature allowed it (not all do), they could come up with something unique on the spot. Under normal conditions, however (which occur 99% of the time), they had to pick something off the pre-approved list.

 

Once we started doing that, it became standard practice and VPPs were never a problem after that.

 

Likewise, summon could be very troublesom if people can just make stuff up off the top of their heads in mid-session. However, that takes so long (designing a new thing to summon) and is so impractical that insisting on a pre-approved writeup for each summoned creature was pretty much a no-brainer.

 

Requiring pre-approval (with the proviso that emergencies will allow some flexibility) pretty much solved most of the abuse problems with both of those powers, and some of the most interesting and successful characters we ever had, used those powers thereafter.

 

C

[Sean Waters]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

I'm not allowed to play charcters with VPPs.

 

What?

[JackValhalla]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

No, VPP isn't as bad as people say... it's really much much worse. Even if you insist that the player write up the slots in advance.

 

In my experience, though, players never bother to abuse extra-dimensional travel. The potential is there.. XDT is one of those powers that has nearly infinite potential for game-wrecking or balance-trashing. But unlike transform or summon, nobody bothers to abuse ex-dee-travel. I'm not sure why.

 

I've never had a problem with the Inventor skill either, nobody's ever tried anything weird with it.

[NestorDRod]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

No' date=' VPP isn't as bad as people say... it's really [b']much much worse[/b]. Even if you insist that the player write up the slots in advance.

 

In my experience, though, players never bother to abuse extra-dimensional travel. The potential is there.. XDT is one of those powers that has nearly infinite potential for game-wrecking or balance-trashing. But unlike transform or summon, nobody bothers to abuse ex-dee-travel. I'm not sure why.

 

I've never had a problem with the Inventor skill either, nobody's ever tried anything weird with it.

 

This reminds me of the story bandied about our gaming group about the player who somehow got XDT, UAO past his GM (it may have been through a VPP, at that) and used it to totally derail the GM's climactic battle scene with the main villain.

 

Other than that, I got nothin'.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

No' date=' VPP isn't as bad as people say... it's really [b']much much worse[/b]. Even if you insist that the player write up the slots in advance.

 

So does charging a small amount of points for each slot alleviate this problem? After all, a VPP is only a Multipower with unlimited slots at no additional cost, so if a VPP with all slots written up in advance is hugely unbalancing, a very large Multipower must be similarly unbalancing.

 

Actually, you'd get a pretty good VPP simulation (better in some respects) if you spent 70 points on Multiform and 280 on increasing the available 350 point forms - that's 72,057,594,337,927,900 possible forms [72 quadrillion!], which should be enough to cover any combination of powers you wanted your VPP to have, with no roll to change your powers, and only 1/2 phase IIRC. Plus you can change your stats and disad's at will.

[gojira]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

LS: Breathe Underwater

 

I seldom see that abused.

[Vondy]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

So does charging a small amount of points for each slot alleviate this problem? After all, a VPP is only a Multipower with unlimited slots at no additional cost, so if a VPP with all slots written up in advance is hugely unbalancing, a very large Multipower must be similarly unbalancing.

 

Actually, you'd get a pretty good VPP simulation (better in some respects) if you spent 70 points on Multiform and 280 on increasing the available 350 point forms - that's 72,057,594,337,927,900 possible forms [72 quadrillion!], which should be enough to cover any combination of powers you wanted your VPP to have, with no roll to change your powers, and only 1/2 phase IIRC. Plus you can change your stats and disad's at will.

 

Perhaps 72 Quadrillion is overkill.

[Vondy]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

No' date=' VPP isn't as bad as people say... it's really [b']much much worse[/b]. Even if you insist that the player write up the slots in advance.

 

This assumes you don't require a clear, reasonable FX definition for the VPP that fits the game you intend to run. You wouldn't let a player build a character whose powers and FX didn't fit the game without a VPP. Why would a VPP be any different.

[Markdoc]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

I'd agree that VPPs have not been a problem in my game. In fact, they are not even very popular among my players. The flexibility they provide is offset by a steep cost. You can have a lot of useful powers, but no really powrful ones. Unless, of course, you allow any of the house rule variants which allow active points to go above pool cost, in which case you deserve everything you get.

 

One thing that hasn't been abused in my game, which used to really worry me, is Entangle. For heroic level games where 90+% of opponents have STR under 20, entangle can be fiendish - but players just don't seem to grok it, for some reason.

 

cheers, Mark

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

I'd agree that VPPs have not been a problem in my game. In fact' date=' they are not even very popular among my players. The flexibility they provide is offset by a steep cost. You can have a lot of useful powers, but no really powrful ones. Unless, of course, you allow any of the house rule variants which allow active points to go above pool cost, in which case you deserve everything you get. [/quote']

 

A character who derives most of his powers from a VPP, and has a very high pool, needs to agree to two things. First, that the character cannot exceed the campaign damage/defense caps, even if the pool is large enough to do so (eg. a 90 point pool in a 12 DC max game can't have attacks that do more than 12 DC). Second, that the pool will be limited so as not to step on others' areas of specialty. I don't find them any more subject to abuse than many other abilities, as long as the player isn't intending it to be the "fix anything, anytime" power.

 

One thing that hasn't been abused in my game' date=' which used to really worry me, is Entangle. For heroic level games where 90+% of opponents have STR under 20, entangle can be fiendish - but players just don't seem to grok it, for some reason.[/quote']

 

In heroic games, I expect powers to be scrutinized more. My FH Wizard has an entangle, but it's built with more dice BOD and less Defense so it can be more effectively used to create barriers, while avoiding the ability to pretty much wrap up any opponent in an inescapable trap. That said, you're right that this is an easy one to abuse in a heroic level game, between STR and the fact most attacks tend to be focused.

[Markdoc]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

A character who derives most of his powers from a VPP' date=' and has a very high pool, needs to agree to two things. First, that the character cannot exceed the campaign damage/defense caps, even if the pool is large enough to do so (eg. a 90 point pool in a 12 DC max game can't have attacks that do more than 12 DC).[/quote']

 

Perhaps part of the reason I've never had problems with VPP is because I have never used point caps. In that case, the VPP guy is unlikely to be able to outshine anyone who specialises - that 90 point pool is going to soak a fair chunk o' points, even if heavily limited.

 

cheers, Mark

[Dust Raven]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

One thing I haven't seen abused much is Stretching. There are many ways Stretching can be abused, and I've seen most of them done, but not often. One of my favorite is the Stretched Move By (or the Streched Sweep). A Stretched Haymaker could be particularly surprising as well, especially from around a corner or otherwise from behind cover where than -5 to DCV won't hurt as much.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

Perhaps part of the reason I've never had problems with VPP is because I have never used point caps. In that case' date=' the VPP guy is unlikely to be able to outshine anyone who specializes - that 90 point pool is going to soak a fair chunk o' points, even if heavily limited.[/quote']That's been my experience as well. We have a PC in our Champions game (Prodigy; run by Mentor) with a 95 point VPP ("Mental" sfx) and he's never been unbalancing. For one thing, he has to run all of his defenses out of that VPP, so that's usually 30 or 40 points spoken for right there. That doesn't leave a lot available for Telepathy or Ego Blast or Mind Control or Telekinisis or Force Wall or whatever.

 

I'm sure it could be abused if it was a different player or the GMs let him. But that's not gonna happen in our campaign. That because we trust (and why we trust) each other.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

(Prodigy; run by Mentor)

That seems oddly appropriate.

[Kid Jurassic]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

Clairsentience. It has a bad rep, but tightly controlled by the GM it can be a great help and plot device...

[Sidume]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

"Overall Levels"

While these can be very abusive when a hero has a 1/2 dozen, few plays go that route.

I once shot down a players use of these when he wanted to have them "default to levels in perception," but haven't had a problem since then.

[mojo_bones]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

This reminds me of the story bandied about our gaming group about the player who somehow got XDT, UAO past his GM (it may have been through a VPP, at that) and used it to totally derail the GM's climactic battle scene with the main villain.

 

Other than that, I got nothin'.

I was in a game where this exact thing happened. It may be the same story (Jeff, perhaps?). The GM really did not know the system so that was a big part of the problem, but after that I limited VPP in my games severely. Better safe than sorry.

[superferret]

Time Based Powers

 

Forgive me if this has already been done:

 

Has anyone seen the potential of time-based powers to emulate almost anything?

 

"I'll step into the past, at a time that this door was open"

"Aging the lock so it becomes so much dust"

 

Distorting time to (appear to) move faster, or to make my enemy (appear to) move slower.

 

Healing by regressing the patient to a time when he/she was not injured...

 

I would not normally allow PCs to use time magic.

[NestorDRod]

Re: Least Abused Powers

 

I was in a game where this exact thing happened. It may be the same story (Jeff' date=' perhaps?). The GM really did not know the system so that was a big part of the problem, but after that I limited VPP in my games severely. Better safe than sorry.[/quote']

 

Indeed one of the principals involved in the fracas was named Jeff (at least he's the one who told me the story). Small world, eh?

 

Could you possibly be the Man With Three First Names? If so, big wave from the State of Maryland. Long time, no see, sir! Tales are still told of the "heroes" from BOMA!

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Time Based Powers

 

Has anyone seen the potential of time-based powers to emulate almost anything?

 

"I'll step into the past, at a time that this door was open"

"Aging the lock so it becomes so much dust"

 

Distorting time to (appear to) move faster, or to make my enemy (appear to) move slower.

 

Healing by regressing the patient to a time when he/she was not injured...

 

I would not normally allow PCs to use time magic.

Well, if you're truly following the Reason From Effect Hero mantra, time is just the sfx; they still have to purchase the individual Powers. So Distorting time is just a SPD Aid/Drain/Transfer. Aging the lock could be some sort of Dispel. Healing is Healing. "Time manipulation" is just the sfx to explain how he does these things, not a blank check to do anything they want. (USPD has some great examples of Time-based powers, BTW.)