Special Effects vs Rules

[greypaladin_01]

Just a quick question that has come up in our current Champs game. My co-GM and I are discussing it but I wanted to get some input from everyone here.

 

Just where does the special effects of a power end and needing to spend points on an effect begin?

 

Example 1: a PC water using energy projector arrives at a burning building. She does not have a Dispel (Fire) power slot but wants to try put out a small section of fire to allow trapped persons to run out the cleared path.

 

By The Rules: You cannot do this because you do not have the correct power.

 

By Special Effects: Water can put out fire. I would say maybe allow a 1/2 active point of the water EB to be used as a suppress or dispel.

 

Example 2: A character with and Entangle defined as Solid Light (think something along the lines of Green Lantern) or sticky webs (like spider man) wants to Entangle another character in two ways.

 

The first - energy chains pinning a character between two trees. They do not want them to be able to fly away.

 

The second - The sticky webs are used to entangle a character to the wall (similar to the picture under the Entangle power in the 5th Revised Rule Book)

 

By The Rules: I belive the Entangle does not hamper movement powers in anyway although they will not free the character (except Teleport)

 

By Special Effects: If a character has enough strength or movement power (like Flight) to break the trees or the wall they are stuck to they can still move but might not have broken the entangle.

 

Does this makes sense to anyone else... what would the rest of you do in these situations?

 

Thank you for any suggestions you have in this matter.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

And welcome to Hero.

 

The Easy Answer: SFX must be turned into Powers when you feel it's needed.

 

It depends on the level of granularity you want in the game, as well as how strictly you stick to the rules.

 

Now - moving onto your specific example of Can SFX do this?

 

Under Skills there is the Power Skill - this is a Skill built into the Mechanics that allows you to perform one off Power Tricks/Stunts/Etc/Etc/Etc

 

In the case of your energy blaster using Water to try and put out a fire the common response is that a Power Skill Roll will allow them, generally as a one off or two off try, change their Energy Blast into a Dispel Fire. There is a much more in depth discussion on using the Skill in both UNTIL Superpowers Database 1 and The Ultimate Skill. The description in 5ER is good enough for most games.

 

There are, somewhere, some ideas of using Movement Powers to convert to STR to overcome things where logically momentum would help. I think. At least I'm pretty sure. If not - see above regarding Power Skill.

 

It's usually expected, in the case of the Water Blaster using their EB as a Dispel for example, that if they plan on using that ability more frequently they put some XP into it and buy the Dispel.

 

Beyond that the fuzzy line of Rules vs SFX is something that every table should decide for themselves as to exactly where SFX stops. It is stated in the book that SFX can sometimes give a benefit (and there's an example of using one Power as another Power because it's mostly trivial) and sometimes don't help at all or worse yet work against you.

[greypaladin_01]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

Thank you for responding and I'll review the power skill to see how that might work for us.

 

I would still appreciate any other insights or experiences others might have have had in this matter.

[Vondy]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

In general, if it only comes up once or twice its definately something the power skill can cover, or even plain old GM handwaivium. However, if its an effect that will be used more than once in a blue moon, it will eventually need to be paid for with points. At least, this had been my guideline in my games over the years. I would recommend a multipower that can have additional slots tacked on when a "power trick" becomes a reliable, regular thing.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

My general rule of thumb has been that if the power is being stretched to accommodate the story (and it makes sense) I will allow it. If it is to allow the PC to shine, then the first time is free. If it is to accommodate a players wishes and does not make the story better not particularly make the character shine then it is disallowed until they stump up.

 

 

 

Doc

[Trebuchet]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

In our Champions campaign we tend to allow such things; especially when they're being used to protect the innocent bystanders and normals rather (say) attacking the bad guy(s). It lets players be heroic and feel good about what they're doing. Attention still has to be paid to the special effects and how relevant those would be to a given situation; but in your example I don't think any of the 5 GMs in our group would have even blinked at such a use.

 

We've actually had something reasonably similar come up in-game: A villain group set fire to several buildings in a small town to keep the authorities and our heroes busy fighting fires whilst the bad guys stole a magical artifact from a nearby castle. Unfortunately for them, one of our team had weather-based powers - including the ability to summon a very powerful localized (1 KM radius) thunderstorm which we'd previously defined as including heavy rainfall. Hero summoned storm, fires went out or were reduced to a level the local fire brigade could handle by themselves, and the bad guy's big distractions delayed our team for about 1 Turn. (They didn't get the artifact they were after either; and in fact fled after our heroes had flattened - read captured - two more members of their group).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

The general consensus in most games, especially Champions but not limited to Superheroes, is that the cooler or more heroic the maneuver/trick is the more readily it is simply allowed off hand.

 

I believe, and I think others on these boards also believe, that having fun is more important, much much more important, than what the rulebook says. And if being the Hero Of The Day encourages more fun, then go with it.

[Utech]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

I'm all for special effects being special. I'd happily allow any of the examples you mentioned.

 

I think special effects should bring along special advantages from time to time. Likewise, they should cause special problems from time to time.

 

Fire Dude may manage to use his flames (Energy Blast) to

• start a campfire for the Boy Scouts
  
• heat up a cold room by repeatedly blasting (and slagging) a metal chair
  
• make a flaming signal in the night sky
  
• etc.
  

but sooner or later, the bad guys will

• figure out that it might be a good idea to wear flame-resistant materials
  
• soak their hostages in gasoline
  
• make their own flaming signal in the night sky to lure unsuspecting heroes to their doom.
  

 

As long as it's making a better story, we're all good.

[Tonio]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

I'd say using a water-based EB to put out regular fires is well within the realm of SFX, just like fire-based EBs can be used to light regular fires. Using it to put out "magical" or "super" fire is not, though. Power Skill can deal with that.

[Mr Reasonable]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

I'd have thought that fire could be damaged like anything else. It probably has desolidification (vulnerable to water and vacuum) or 3/4 ph and en damage reduction against everything but water and vacuum attacks. As something you encounter in game, fire is an object just like a table or a vault door. Hit it hard enough or with the right sort of thing and you will destroy it. That gets rid of the rather artificial assumption that you need to drain some things. Sure drain works, but normal attacks should too, if of an appropriate nature.

 

As for the entangle I think it does prevent movement (except teleport) but I would certainly allow movement powers to add to strength (as in the rules for flight adding to strength) for breakouts if the movement was not bought as restrainable. That sounds reasonable.

[greypaladin_01]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

Thanks for all the input everyone... work reared its ugly head and this is the first chance I've had to check back on the boards.

 

I'll compare notes with my co-GM and see what we can come up with from here...

 

Thank you all again... this is one of the reasons I've always liked HERO the fan base is always much more open to sharing their experience and ideas than in many other boards I've seen..

[Nolgroth]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

Yup. We bad.

[Alibear]

Re: Special Effects vs Rules

 

No. We good.