Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Yes, but *why* would you want to do such?

 

I mean, whats with the burning to desire to play somebody whose not even a Heroic Normal?

[Zed-F]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Why do we roleplay anything? For the roleplaying experience, naturally.

 

Personally, I don't *think* that Remjin was saying that MA's are inherently inferior and weak.

 

I think, rather, that he intended to present an interesting character concept - one who, personally, has nothing more than human strength, skill, and ability... except for the ability to make sure that nobody *else* has anything more than human strength, skill, and ability as well. And as that - as a concept for a single character - I find it interesting.

 

It 'levels the playing field' by reducing things to a matter of skill and training, rather than superpowers against the skill and training.

 

Is is "fair"? Not necessarily. Because, as has been pointed out, it doesn't *give* them his skill and training. However, on the right character - from the *character* perspective - does it make it fair-er...?

 

Consider, if you will, the character who might end up wanting abilities like this. A martial artist who finds himself highly trained, very capable, but without the pseudo-mystic abilities of your average super-MA. He lacks any rDef that isn't part of a suit of armor. He lacks anything beyond baseline skills, NCM stats, MA's, and some combat skill levels - he is, for all intents and purposes, a high powered *heroic* character.

 

He's human. He's *mortal*. But here he is, trying to survive in a world where you've got people who *sneeze* more powerful attacks than he's got. Where lumbering oxes with big fists can dish out more damage than he can dream of - not through skill, that he wouldn't begrudge them, but simply because they were trampled by a radioactive wildebeest.

 

There's no honor in that sort of combat, at least not that he can see. Honor is in testing your *skill* against the *skill* of another. Your *training*. Not whether or not you live near a nuclear power plant. Not whether or not you found somebody to give you the blessings of Kalamazoo the Great.

 

Therefore, he breaks his own principles... a little. He seeks out, and learns, a technique that will allow him to reduce the equation to skill against skill. He uses it against superbeings - and it is only useful against superbeings, because normal people cannot be affected by it.

 

To his way of thinking - that honor is skill vs skill - this is fair. He has a power that he can use, granted, and he uses it freely. But it only works against others who 'cheat.'

 

If, having been affected by this technique, they have enough power and skill left to defeat him, then they do so. Then they have earned the *right* to do so, because they have the *skill* to overcome him. They are the greater warrior, and they have proven so honorably.

 

He can move on to the next superpowered Goliath who thinks he's skilled when he's merely powerful.

 

*That* is interesting. To me.

 

At least a couple people on this thread find it interesting.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

What this boils down to (if you take Martial Arts out of it) is essentially the same question I was asking in this thread last year:

 

How should a Super-Power Suppression Field affect characteristics?

 

 

Hi all,

 

You've seen this in comics all the time...

 

Superman is exposed to Red Solar/Kryptonite radiation.

Flash has the Speed Force taken away.

The Mutants in X-3 lose their abilities when exposed to the 'serum'.

 

Not all HERO characters are built with this in mind so how do you implement it. Say Flash in your game has a 35 DEX and Batman has a 30. They end up in a trap that suppresses all Super-Powers. Batman is obviously unaffected. Flash obviously loses everything listed as Powers on the HERO character sheet but what about his SPD and DEX.

 

Assuming they weren't bought with some type of limitation how do you decide how much he loses?

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

jklweissman pretty much hit it right on the head... and thank you, Zed, for the compliments and help.

 

If you don't like the concept or understand it, that's fine. There is, however, no reason to belittle someone for liking it. Sarcasm not appreciated.

 

I ran out of rep to give, will do so at earliest opportunity. The mean-spirited should not wait with abated breath.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Option that I haven't seen yet: Insubstantial is currently the 'default' power that can describe invunerabilities to certian effects. So, in theory, you could describe his power as the following:

 

1. Insubstantial, with "non-superheroic abilities" defined as its weakness.

2. STR, with the Affect Real World enhancer on it.

 

The SFX is literally "Kung Fu" - which actually means "great accomplishment". This is a technique that allows him to test his own great accomplishments (ie, his training) fu against others.

 

EDIT - wait, that only gives you the invunerability, not the other part...dang. Although that begs the question: this build makes the individual immune to superpowers, but not against indirect uses; someone could still drop a building on his head, or kill him with knockback-induced trauma. It also doesn't make him immune to being shot with an assualt rifle.

[OddHat]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

What this boils down to (if you take Martial Arts out of it) is essentially the same question I was asking in this thread last year:

 

How should a Super-Power Suppression Field affect characteristics?

 

As I said (iirc) in that thread, you should probably have some clear idea on the conceptual level of just how much of your characteristic is from your power source and how much is plain biology and physics (if there's a conceptual difference in the setting between those and whatever makes your character "Super"). The real world Nathan Jones is 6'10", 340 pounds, and at his best going by recorded WSM lifts had a STR, in HERO terms, of around 23, give or take. A brick with a similar build could probably justify a STR of 23 or so even with his "powers" turned off. On the other hand, if your Brick is an 85 pound girl, good luck justifying more than a STR 12 or so from non-superpowered sources, and then only if she had a lot of muscle on her frame.

 

Closer to the topic, sorry if anything I posted was seen as a slam on those who like the concept. Different strokes and all that.

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Oddhat, nothing you said was out of line. You simply stated you didn't like the concept and why that was the case. Nothing wrong with that. If you look, I repped you for it, in fact.

 

Only a few posts back, there's a wise-acher commentary that I'll simply not refer to.

 

The suppress is hard to implement as was pointed out... and I don't like it if it weakens that person to others.

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Option that I haven't seen yet: Insubstantial is currently the 'default' power that can describe invunerabilities to certian effects. So, in theory, you could describe his power as the following:

 

1. Insubstantial, with "non-superheroic abilities" defined as its weakness.

2. STR, with the Affect Real World enhancer on it.

 

The SFX is literally "Kung Fu" - which actually means "great accomplishment". This is a technique that allows him to test his own great accomplishments (ie, his training) fu against others.

 

EDIT - wait, that only gives you the invunerability, not the other part...dang. Although that begs the question: this build makes the individual immune to superpowers, but not against indirect uses; someone could still drop a building on his head, or kill him with knockback-induced trauma. It also doesn't make him immune to being shot with an assualt rifle.

 

.... oh my... this may be the beginning of the path, though. It sounds right, anyway. Insubstantial is a form of desolid or something, right?

 

This could be it... its simple, gets a lot of it done, this I could work with. The attack part was already covered previously, this is the start to the defense part, this could work...

[OddHat]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

The suppress is hard to implement as was pointed out...

 

Actually, while I still like the Suppress and Transform ideas, I was thinking that an interesting intermediary effect rather than Suppress might be: Mind Control, Telepathic, One Command Only (Do Not Use Your Powers), Must Meet Gaze, and maybe Does Not Give Mental Awareness. The character would find energy projectors and Force Field Bricks easy to take down. Bricks who were always stuck as such (twelve foot tall aliens, gorillas with human brains, etc) might or might not lose some defenses, depending on what the GM felt they could reasonably deactivate.

 

Cheaper than the Suppress, and seems to have fewer SFX issues.

[casualplayer]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Seems like this character would make everyone reappraise Inherent as an advantage!

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Actually, while I still like the Suppress and Transform ideas, I was thinking that an interesting intermediary effect rather than Suppress might be: Mind Control, Telepathic, One Command Only (Do Not Use Your Powers), Must Meet Gaze, and maybe Does Not Give Mental Awareness. The character would find energy projectors and Force Field Bricks easy to take down. Bricks who were always stuck as such (twelve foot tall aliens, gorillas with human brains, etc) might or might not lose some defenses, depending on what the GM felt they could reasonably deactivate.

 

Cheaper than the Suppress, and seems to have fewer SFX issues.

 

Aaah... another good idea! Stupid rep function... VERY GOOD! Only problem here is that it makes that individual extremely vulnerable to a team. It would become a matter of fighting duels, enforced by the character's own honor system, I think, which could work well. With the relative cheapness of this power, though, it could be possible to match it both ways by requiring that the character also turn his own powers off to make the duel fair.

 

Seems like this character would make everyone reappraise Inherent as an advantage!

 

Yes, perhaps, but its very much a one-shot wonder kind of thing. As a whole, probably a more interesting NPC than a PC, which is how I'm planning to use him in any case. As a challenge to a skilled PC whose been dependent on superpowers, as a plot device to learning new martial skills, that sort of thing. Could be very interesting in that respect, but probably not so much as a PC.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

.... oh my... this may be the beginning of the path, though. It sounds right, anyway. Insubstantial is a form of desolid or something, right?

 

This could be it... its simple, gets a lot of it done, this I could work with. The attack part was already covered previously, this is the start to the defense part, this could work...

 

Oh, right - yeah, I keep on forgetting the name of Desolid/Insubstantial in HERO. You'd have to get GM handwaving for people to not use Affects Desolid on you,though.

 

In terms of Attack,I'd probably use Surpress [any superpower, 1 at a time (+1/4), Only to tone it down to Non-superheroic levels (-1/2), Extended Effect (2x), Autofire (+1/2), Penetrating (+1/2)] - and define it as "hitting certian vital Chi points". Purchase up a high OCV for this one attack (perhaps actually IN the superheroic range), and you've got a viable, but probably balanced, power.

 

This has the advantage of making it a non-trivial task to use the power on someone, as you need to hit them multiple times for the effects to take place. However, once they DO get into HtH combat with the individual, they can fairly rapidly have their powers drained.

[assault]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

As a whole' date=' probably a more interesting NPC than a PC, which is how I'm planning to use him in any case. As a challenge to a skilled PC whose been dependent on superpowers, as a plot device to learning new martial skills, that sort of thing. Could be very interesting in that respect, but probably not so much as a PC.[/quote']

 

Yes, I think this is correct.

 

As I was implying with my comment about my Bat-Girl homage, this character would be horribly vulnerable to many of the weakest superbeings, and would get curb-stomped rather more often than I would prefer my PCs to be.

 

Funnily enough, a lot of the characters I build these days would probably be amongst the stompers, since I tend to build Golden Age style characters who are adequate brawlers even without their powers. Of course, part of that is the 100-point part of the character concept. I would go with 200, although that would only leave you 150 points to build the suppression effect.

 

There are some interesting conceptual issues. How would this character fare against a robot, or a brain in a robotic body, like Robotman? What about supernatural entities? Aliens? And so on... The idea seems a little predicated on the notion that supers are at some level "humans with powers", and therefore prone to break down at a certain point.

 

That's not a problem if the character is an NPC, but would be if it was a PC.

 

One thing this thread has done is convince me that I definitely should do something I was considering, and clearly defining my characters' abilities "without their powers". I was avoiding this, since the obvious thing to do in this case is to add a +1/4 advantage to the powers that are likely to be lost, and define a condition under which they will be lost. (OIHID is the most obvious way of doing this, but there are other options.) Of course once you do this, you are telling the GM, "please neutralise my powers every now and then", and need to be ready and willing to deal with that, which isn't for everybody.

 

But, as we've seen, GMs can always neutralise your powers without you asking them to do it... It probably makes sense to prepare for that, although that falls into the category of "asking for trouble".

[Metaphysician]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Your going to have a very hard time doing it even with 250 points free, if your going for a full blown Suppress vs Everything. Even disabling 60 AP cap superhumans requires a 20d6 Suppress, and if the cost for "Versus All SFX" is any less than +4, its being way undershot.

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Your going to have a very hard time doing it even with 250 points free' date=' if your going for a full blown Suppress vs Everything. Even disabling 60 AP cap superhumans requires a 20d6 Suppress, and if the cost for "Versus All SFX" is any less than +4, its being way undershot.[/quote']

 

The original idea didn't have point limitations, honestly, but the idea that it might be a PC was brought up. As a whole, as you have mentioned, its just not a good PC idea, and can be entirely unfair... thus, through this discussion, I have relegated this concept to the role of an NPC and more for story and character development.

 

The idea as a whole came from the simple notion of the old mythos surrounding the warrior ideal... a man versus a man, skill and will the determinations... I think this would make a great NPC for a martial character or a mixed type hero, perhaps even a humble pie for perspective on others, that sort of thing. I'm just glad for the ideas on how to do it. I love Hero, but I'm not exactly the greatest rulesmith out here, so I like the help. Where else to go than with the experts here?

[Metaphysician]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Actually, I think the idea is even worse as an NPC. As it basically boils down to either "the party kicks his ass anyway" or "the party gets stomped in a humiliating fashion", mostly depending on exactly how you define the Suppress. And you pretty much have to define it in the most broad, "Suppress vs Anything You Might Actually Buy", utterly lacking in SFX justification level to do the latter ( barring an unusual party composition ).

 

*blink* Actually, what this most reminds me of is the Champion, and his "honorable combat" that consists mainly of intentionally hamstringing his opponents in an arbitrary fashion. . .

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

ummm.... NPC, not VILLAIN... I don't like the suppression to all idea. like the pressure point sfx, though. I'm talking about more as a plot point to someone it might be a significant event to like the aforementuoned idea of this NPC as a martual teacher to a PC who wishes to learn more, that type of thing...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Ahh, so your thinking more just someone who can disable metahuman powers? Yeah, if the point is to, say, get a specific character to learn to rely on more than just his powers, that works fine. Especially since you can tailor the effect.

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Ohm and assault, yes he's aimed at humans. Outside of that? hels probably useless. For the world I'm building, if I use him, it will be a problem ss powered armor will exist, maybe robots/cyborgs, but probablu not aliens...

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Ohm and assault' date=' yes he's aimed at humans. Outside of that? hels probably useless. For the world I'm building, if I use him, it will be a problem ss powered armor will exist, maybe robots/cyborgs, but probablu not aliens...[/quote']

 

Well, if it's your world, you have another option.

 

Don't spend ANY points on this ability for the character.

Instead, have everyone that this ability would affect take a -0 to -1/4 "mystery" Limitation on all of their Powers, Talents and Characteristics that would be affected. This is relatively easy to do up front but can be a pain to retrofit already built characters.

 

This is essentially the same method that can be used in Fantasy Hero to model cleric's 'turning undead' with a high PRE. It's not a power of the cleric as much as it's a limitation/disadvantage of the undead.

[Neutron]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

"If you don't like the concept or understand it, that's fine. There is, however, no reason to belittle someone for liking it. Sarcasm not appreciated." "Only a few posts back, there's a wise-acher commentary that I'll simply not refer to."-Remjin

 

I believe I'm the wise-acher? I intended no offense in any way and will publically apologize to you right now. I was just making an observation. I will be more cautious with my responses on these boards from now on and move on to a different thread if need be. I'm sorry that my comments offended you.

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Well, if it's your world, you have another option.

 

Don't spend ANY points on this ability for the character.

Instead, have everyone that this ability would affect take a -0 to -1/4 "mystery" Limitation on all of their Powers, Talents and Characteristics that would be affected. This is relatively easy to do up front but can be a pain to retrofit already built characters.

 

If he was to be a major NPC, perhaps, but only if that.. its a lot of paperwork when a simple hand-wave could have done it.

 

I believe I'm the wise-acher? I intended no offense in any way and will publically apologize to you right now. I was just making an observation. I will be more cautious with my responses on these boards from now on and move on to a different thread if need be. I'm sorry that my comments offended you.

 

I re-read your post, and you know what? It wasn't as sarcastic as I had originally taken it. I appreciate that you can take something like that and be very civil in your response and take responsibility for a possible mistake. Please don't be more cautious, while I try to take into account the inevitable misunderstanding of textual exchange, I apparently didn't do so well on that principle with your post. Let me apologize in return, and let's just have nice-nice time on the boards, eh? And, to be totally honest, it wasn't just your post that kind of set me off, and who knows if that person intended negativity either... *sigh* Always hard when there isn't a facial expression or tonal tell to go with conversation.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

To come at this from a completely different angle, if the ultimate goal here is for this guy to fight normals on equal terms and then superheroes on equal terms, why not make him a decent kung fu master (but still basically a normal), and then give him some ability like "Ch'i Focusing" or somesuch that would be bought as Xd6 Aid to All Physical characteristics, but it is something that is so taxing he can only do it a few times a day (give it charges or its own END Reserve, or a Burnout roll). That way he will only use his boosting ability when he absolutely has to, so when he faces normals, he will fight as a normal, but against supers he has an ace in the hole.

 

Of course the Aid effectively makes him superhuman (albeit temporary), so if that is out of concept, I would suggest buying him a Find Weakness with a high roll, because that will help him hurt supers, but will make little difference when fighting already low defense normals. Also get him something like Blow Slipping: +15 PD/ED Armor, only if able to dodge (-½), All attacks treated as Penetrating (-½); this means anyone can hurt him, but he has better protection against high damage attacks.

 

___________________________________________________________

The rich scare me. They can already avoid taxes - Grim Reaper

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

 

snip stuff about buffing the character

 

 

I think the issue is that buffing him into superhuman levels only covers STR and DEX (and the associated PD/ED) - it doesn't cover using superpowers against him. Specifically, it doesn't cover, say, using telepathy, or insubstantability, or Teleportation, or anything else that isn't directly countered by traditional kung fu maneuvers. And once you start getting into powers that can cancel THAT out, you've effectively destroyed the character concept of "normal trained martial artist that can debuff people down to his level".

[Remjin]

Re: Make everyone fight at your level... a heroic fighter in a supers world.

 

Blow Slipping: +15 PD/ED Armor' date=' only if able to dodge (-½), All attacks treated as Penetrating (-½);[/quote']

 

... ... nevermind... I have a dirty mind, I guess, and yes... I'm kind of stretching for it...

 

Thanks for the contribution, its not a terrible idea, I'll have to think on it... but if I went that route, I may as well just make a supers martial artist and take a psychological limit: must fight at opponent's level (supers/human) and make it 50x easier to keep track of and implement. =)

 

Its an interestingly different way to go at it, though.