Lower Water and Part Water

[Qelan]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

You aren't taking the system at its word. Why is it that people are happy to say that if a limitation does not limit then its worth no points but have real difficulty in saying that if an advantage or effect has no real benefit then it is worth no points?

 

If you insist on statting up every minor aspect of a power, especially a complex environmental one, then expect it to get complex. Personally I look for the major game effect and then allow the rest through on SFX, unless the player wants to make significant game effect through it.

 

 

Doc

 

I agree with Doc when it comes to the definition of this power. I could even imagine using the default level of change environment with some extended area to duplicate the effect.

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

You aren't taking the system at its word. Why is it that people are happy to say that if a limitation does not limit then its worth no points but have real difficulty in saying that if an advantage or effect has no real benefit then it is worth no points?

 

If you insist on statting up every minor aspect of a power, especially a complex environmental one, then expect it to get complex. Personally I look for the major game effect and then allow the rest through on SFX, unless the player wants to make significant game effect through it.

 

 

Doc

 

I'm not expecting to stat up absolutely every effect; I just consider in both these cases there are multiple effects that are significant and that I expect to see used, and I'm not a fan of trying to cover that with just SFX, because its exactly the policy that leads to SFX shopping for freebies.

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

I agree with Doc when it comes to the definition of this power. I could even imagine using the default level of change environment with some extended area to duplicate the effect.

 

That seems well beyond what Change Environment is used for to me; as I said, its hard for me to compare this effect to, for example, making a light fog; its hard for me to even compare it to more intense effects, just because the implications are so far reaching (consider the simple case of using lower water in an area where you have a collection of water breathers-only present).

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

I'm not expecting to stat up absolutely every effect; I just consider in both these cases there are multiple effects that are significant and that I expect to see used' date=' and I'm not a fan of trying to cover that with just SFX, because its exactly the policy that leads to SFX shopping for freebies.[/quote']

 

If there are so many significant effects then why are you moaning that it is expensive then? Hero works that way - if there are lots of significant effects then you'll pay lots of points for them.

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

That seems well beyond what Change Environment is used for to me; as I said' date=' its hard for me to compare this effect to, for example, making a light fog; its hard for me to even compare it to more intense effects, just because the implications are so far reaching (consider the simple case of using lower water in an area where you have a collection of water breathers-only present).[/quote']

 

The only way to engage the drowning rules - which is what you would be doing for the water breathers - is to change the environment. There are no other mechanics currently in the system to engage those bits of the toolkit.

 

 

Doc

[SteveZilla]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

AFAIK, I can't use Change Environment to create a bunch of water to cause a character to drown per the drowning rules. But I could create that water with Transform, with the amount of water created based upon the BODY rolled.

 

So why not use it to lower water (transforming water to air) based upon how much BODY it rolled?

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

If there are so many significant effects then why are you moaning that it is expensive then? Hero works that way - if there are lots of significant effects then you'll pay lots of points for them.

 

 

Because many of them are not relevant at the same time, and their relevance is outside of the control of the users so a multipower is not operant; in other words you'd be paying for a bunch of ability that frequently would be irrelevant.

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

The only way to engage the drowning rules - which is what you would be doing for the water breathers - is to change the environment. There are no other mechanics currently in the system to engage those bits of the toolkit.

 

 

Doc

 

 

Actually, I have no evidence there's any direct mechanic to do that all. It seems well beyond the description present in Change Environment, or you'd be able to do the inverse too, and that seems cleary beyond what's intended to be possible given the cost structure of it. Otherwise the inverse would be possible, and that would be an incredibly cheap large area lethal attack.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Because many of them are not relevant at the same time' date=' and their relevance is outside of the control of the users so a multipower is not operant; in other words you'd be paying for a bunch of ability that frequently would be irrelevant.[/quote']

 

The outside control I would dispute - if you want the effect to take place then you sort it out.

 

You can buy a drop attack as simply a teleport that allows someone to fall, or you can buy it as a energy blast or killing attack. In the second example it means that you always get those effects regardless of the opponent's flight etc. That's the way you buy it.

 

If you want to allow the GM control of things then buy them NCC - that's a big discount right there. It also means that the GM can engage those effects when he feels it appropriate. If you dont want to give away control then pay the points.

 

It is that simple.

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Actually' date=' I have no evidence there's any direct mechanic to do that all. [/quote']

 

That's what I thought I said - there are no mechanics to engage that bit of the rules. You can manipulatee the environment in ways beyond the change environment power though. You can burst dams - break walls - open gas canisters etc etc. All dependent on the scenery around you.

 

If all you want to do is manipulate the scenery then work out what you want to do. You want to put an invisible wall up then think force wall or entangle - you can sort out limitations/advantages for that kind of thing and either handwave the stuff like flowing water or secondary flooding.

 

If all you want to do is look at stuff under water or travel across a river with dry feet then look at how you do that and everything else is special effects.

 

You dont seem to want to do those things though. You want something to say this power has this suite of effects - give me a point cost. That is not Hero. That is a lot of other games but it is not Hero.

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

AFAIK' date=' I can't use Change Environment to create a bunch of water to cause a character to drown per the drowning rules. But I [b']could [/b]create that water with Transform, with the amount of water created based upon the BODY rolled.

 

So why not use it to lower water (transforming water to air) based upon how much BODY it rolled?

 

Yup - another way to manipulate the environment - partially limited by scenery as to how much water sticks around.

 

In water the problem would be the immediate displacement of the air by more water (but that is a science issue).

 

I would allow you to use a continuous transform to transform a volume of water to air and allow that to remain in place as a corridor to walk across a river. We might thrash out some details but we'd get a point cost for that...

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

What depth of water can you lower? Does it only work on water, for example, no deeper than 2 metres/1 hex, or can you just keep lowering?

 

Does it work on part of a body of water, or only on standing ground water?

 

What is the effect? Does it just remove impedements to movement or is there something more involved? your suggested method (or change environment) would work well enough, or, if the purpose is just to make boggy ground passable, perhaps some gliding (only in contact with a surface), UAA, area effect.

 

For parting the water, I'm with Doc that tunelling is the least problematic way to proceeed, although, arguably, you could create a tunnel through water by making it desolid, which has the advantage of acting as a barrier to ships too. the water is still there though and, depending on the GM you might need to buy Life Support for anyone passing through the trench.

 

Parting the water: Desolidification , Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Usable As Attack (+1), Area Of Effect (320" Long, 8" Tall, 1" Wide Line; +2 1/2) (200 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only works on bodies of water; -2) 67 real points

 

This produces a 320 metre long, 16 metre deep 'trench' in a body of water. Sounds about right. You can add plenty more limtiations to bring the cost down, and you could potentially use megascale to amke it even cheaper.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Hark at him and his desolidification!

 

Another potential route to tackle the issue.

 

Adding the facility for Life Support to everyone who enters the zone might be useful - yup - ubo limited to within the desolid zone. No attack roll necessary.

 

 

Doc

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

The outside control I would dispute - if you want the effect to take place then you sort it out.

 

 

Since they're situationally and environmentally dependent, you don't have that option; they'll come up when they come up, but you don't get to make the situation such that they can in this case. This isn't "I'll make that character do X;" its "I'll make a situation that _may_ make a character do X".

 

If you want to allow the GM control of things then buy them NCC - that's a big discount right there. It also means that the GM can engage those effects when he feels it appropriate. If you dont want to give away control then pay the points.

 

It is that simple.

 

 

 

No, really its not. I _am_ the GM. But buying all these effects and then Limiting the hell out of them is already what I've done, and it has the same problem there as with your suggestion; it creates horrendous active point bloat, and in a game with Endurance costs and RSR modifiers, that matters.

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

If all you want to do is look at stuff under water or travel across a river with dry feet then look at how you do that and everything else is special effects.

 

You dont seem to want to do those things though. You want something to say this power has this suite of effects - give me a point cost. That is not Hero. That is a lot of other games but it is not Hero.

 

 

Doc

 

Except, of course, Hero already does this selectively all the time; TK is, in fact, a classic example. TK does a lot of things, but it does them indirectly; its not a blast, not a knockback power, not an activate machinery power; its a power that manipulates objects. I want a power that manipulates water in certain specific ways, and that's what I'm trying to find. I simply don't think end effect works here, and I don't think Hero always does either, or powers like Transform and TK wouldn't exist.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Except' date=' of course, Hero already does this selectively all the time; TK is, in fact, a classic example. TK does a lot of things, but it does them indirectly; its not a blast, not a knockback power, not an activate machinery power; its a power that manipulates objects. I want a power that manipulates water in certain specific ways, and that's what I'm trying to find. I simply don't think end effect works here, and I don't think Hero always does either, or powers like Transform and TK wouldn't exist.[/quote']

 

I'm pretty sure that deciding what the end-effect should be is an excellent place to start for almost every Hero build. For example, if you want the 'parting of the water' spell to simply enable you to get a large number of people across a body of water without getting wet, then you are looking at some sort of transport power.

 

If you actually want towering walls of water with an air gap and the ability to bring it crashing down on those chasing you then you need something different.

 

You can use 'affects porous AoE TK', but bear in mind that much water is going to weigh a lot and the TK strength shows the total amoutn you can afefct, not the amount per hex or such.

 

You are quite right though that there are some powers in the system there as catch-alls. You could use transform here, for example, but again, you are going to need to affect the whole body of water - and that is a lot of Body to roll.

 

If you build it as tunelling, then you can decide as (or with) the GM that the tunnel remains until the power ends. There is no real difference between tunelling through a solid or a liquid, although I have to conceed that tunelling is probably not really meant to be used that way.

 

You can't use Force Wall because, whilst it might, possibly, be made strong enought o resist the pressure, it can't form a tunnel or trench as it can not push the water back in the first place.

 

Of course, and I'm grinning like a loon at Doc here, you could build it as an EDM gate: either those travelling through the affected area go to 'dryworld' or the water goes to a dimension where we cannot perceive it or be affected by it. Obviously that would have to be UAA, and would probably be even cheaper than the desolid option (and you would not need to vex yourself over whether Life Support is still needed) - but either of them would allow you to put your arm through the barrier - you just couldn't bring any 'naked water' into the protected area - and when the power switches off, the water comes back very suddenly.

 

So, if you know what you want to accomplish with the power you can tick off the powers that work and the ones that don't.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Of course' date=' and I'm grinning like a loon at Doc here, you could build it as an EDM gate: either those travelling through the affected area go to 'dryworld' or the water goes to a dimension where we cannot perceive it or be affected by it. [/quote']

 

 

I'm still looking at the desolid and thinking that it is almost genius.

 

I think, again it would have to be a continuous effect as it is making all of the water that enters the area of effect desolid. The water itself is not affected but everything else is - the fish find themselves dropping to the floor - boats crash etc.

 

Very cool.

 

If I was GM I might even wave the need for life support but might ask for change environment to deal with residual perception rolls etc.

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

No' date=' really its not. I _am_ the GM. But buying all these effects and then Limiting the hell out of them is already what I've done, and it has the same problem there as with your suggestion; it creates horrendous active point bloat, and in a game with Endurance costs and RSR modifiers, that matters.[/quote']

 

If you dont want the bloat pick an effect that you think is worth it and then handwave the rest. They are obviously not worth the active points.

 

If a power does not provide the effect it should then it is worth less, or no, points....

 

Write them on the character sheet if you want as 0 point adders. Do what you need to make your version of the truth work (and in our games we all have our own versions of the truth - that is what Hero is all about).

 

It is really that simple.

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Except' date=' of course, Hero already does this selectively all the time; TK is, in fact, a classic example. TK does a lot of things, but it does them indirectly; its not a blast, not a knockback power, not an activate machinery power; its a power that manipulates objects. I want a power that manipulates water in certain specific ways, and that's what I'm trying to find. I simply don't think end effect works here, and I don't think Hero always does either, or powers like Transform and TK wouldn't exist.[/quote']

 

No-one said the game system was perfect but telekinesis is not an example for you. Telekinesis, despite the name is not telekinesis the power that most people visualise. Sure is does much of the effects but it has some differences and like all the other powers, is often used to simulate a special effect that implements the game effects it provides.

 

Transform is a power that works on game effect - the special effect can be many different things for the same transform. It just so happens that you can sometimes map game effect and special effect quite closely when using some powers. Energy Blast is very energy blast like, except when it is not.

 

Doc

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

If you actually want towering walls of water with an air gap and the ability to bring it crashing down on those chasing you then you need something different.

 

You can use 'affects porous AoE TK', but bear in mind that much water is going to weigh a lot and the TK strength shows the total amoutn you can afefct, not the amount per hex or such.

 

 

Is that still Steve's take on that? If so its not a problem for me because I cheerfully ignore it. Its no more sensible than spreading the damage out across an area.

 

 

You are quite right though that there are some powers in the system there as catch-alls. You could use transform here, for example, but again, you are going to need to affect the whole body of water - and that is a lot of Body to roll.

 

 

Transform and TK are what I did use; they just seemed problematic.

 

Of course, and I'm grinning like a loon at Doc here, you could build it as an EDM gate: either those travelling through the affected area go to 'dryworld' or the water goes to a dimension where we cannot perceive it or be affected by it. Obviously that would have to be UAA, and would probably be even cheaper than the desolid option (and you would not need to vex yourself over whether Life Support is still needed) - but either of them would allow you to put your arm through the barrier - you just couldn't bring any 'naked water' into the protected area - and when the power switches off, the water comes back very suddenly.

 

So, if you know what you want to accomplish with the power you can tick off the powers that work and the ones that don't.

 

Problem is that none of them really seem to do so well, for the effect I'm trying for; they either end up being too expensive, too cheap, or don't cover the ground.

[Paragon]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

If you dont want the bloat pick an effect that you think is worth it and then handwave the rest. They are obviously not worth the active points.

 

If a power does not provide the effect it should then it is worth less, or no, points....

 

Write them on the character sheet if you want as 0 point adders. Do what you need to make your version of the truth work (and in our games we all have our own versions of the truth - that is what Hero is all about).

 

It is really that simple.

 

 

Doc

 

In essence, that's what I've done. I simply was trying to find out if there was a cleaner way to do it. The concensus I'm getting is that the answer is, in essence, "no".

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

In essence' date=' that's what I've done. I simply was trying to find out if there was a cleaner way to do it. The concensus I'm getting is that the answer is, in essence, "no".[/quote']

 

 

we dont like that word round here, tends to be more "yes,but..."

 

 

Doc

[Kdansky]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Doc, too much double and tripple-posting

 

First thing that came to my mind: Life Support, AoE, Megascaled. By the way: Megascale is *perfect* for this problem. Big area, not quite perfectly exact (but that's definitely not required, we're talking big after all) and brings down the cost a lot.

 

Next idea was Tunneling, and I also like all other movement-based approaches. Then Desolid is really elegant, although kinda funky in how it behaves (not effect-based at all). EDM and Transform obviously catch-alls. I would probably go with Life Support and Elemental Movement. And yes, that does not allow you to crash down the walls and do immense damage. If you want to be able to do that, buy a EB 10d6, Area of Effect Megascaled, will you? After all, powerful stuff costs lots of points. "Only works on big bodies of waters" is easily -2 or more, depending on campaign, so that is where points get reduced by a lot.

 

You know, Moses was a pretty powerful guy (in the same way Magneto is. Fictional, but powerful ). Why should his stuff be very cheap? You want a power which allows hundreds of people to cross an ocean and then kill a legion of soldiers. For cheap? Certainly not!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

Doc' date=' too much double and tripple-posting [/quote']

 

I get carried away and reply to stuff as I see it rather than reading and digesting (or thinking) before typing.

 

Then I get crazy after thoughts and have to post again....

 

I only do it when I'm interested, that's why my post count is so low...

 

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: Lower Water and Part Water

 

............

You know, Moses was a pretty powerful guy (in the same way Magneto is. Fictional, but powerful ). Why should his stuff be very cheap? You want a power which allows hundreds of people to cross an ocean and then kill a legion of soldiers. For cheap? Certainly not!

 

Well, you need a pretty rare focus: a whole bunch of enemies stupid enough to follow you between two 'cliffs' of water