High STR + HKAs, thoughts

[Memona]

Alright, what does everyone think of this power? A player is playing it in one of my upcoming campaigns. He has a 70 STR, so I'm a little dubious on allowing him to use this, but it does have potent advantages.

 

45 pt HKA

5x Endurance (-2)

Major Side Effect (Drain Body 3d6, occurs every time the power successfully strikes an opponent, Delayed Return Rate (5 minutes), -1/4)

Lockout (Locks out the Golden Glow (HtH) and Divine Glow (Forcefield) powers until the BODY drained by the Side Effect fully returns, -1/2)

45 Active Points, 12 Real Points

22.5 END per use

 

Thoughts on over all power? It's a basic 350 point Superhero game.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The biggest issue I can see is that it allows for a 6d6 Killing Attack before factoring in any maneuver damage bonuses (like Haymaker and Move Through).

 

21+ Average Killing Body Damage is going to hurt some 'dedicated' bricks.

[Weldun]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The biggest issue I can see is that it allows for a 6d6 Killing Attack before factoring in any maneuver damage bonuses (like Haymaker and Move Through).

 

21+ Average Killing Body Damage is going to hurt some 'dedicated' bricks.

My thoughts as well. What are the DC limits, if any?

[braincraft]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

What's getting locked out? Does the power lock itself out, or can he use it twice if he's willing to risk going to 0 BODY? How important is the FF? What are your attack DC and defense caps?

 

I wouldn't mind giving someone an uber attack like this if it had crippling costs, and this one looks like it's pretty debilitating. 20 END, 5 BODY, and the loss of two powers for an hour sounds rough.

[Memona]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The Force Field is okay. He still has 14 rPD without and I think 8 rED. He also has a 25 BODY, I believe.

[Markdoc]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Depending on what the other players' PCs look like, I might allow it. It's a very powerful power, but it's also set up with some major limitations, so he's not going to use it routinely.

 

Still: 6d6 killing attack: that's going to generate 100+ STUN on a regular basis, not to mention being lethal against unarmoured foes.

 

I'd be pretty cautious.

 

cheers, Mark

[Weldun]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Thinking on it further, I wouldn't allow it. Simply because it's the "I take out the big one" power. Sometimes you want that nigh-unstoppable juggernaught, but with this power in play, you have to take it into account, and if the other characters don't have anything approaching it, then they'll feel superfluous in such situations. I'm not saying that it's not balanced. Say you send Ripper and two full six-teams? Well, then he'll be reluctant to use it, because doing so would leave him vulnerable to the six-team heavies. But, all things said and done, the power severely limits a GM's options when establishing threat levels.

[Tech]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Alright, what does everyone think of this power? A player is playing it in one of my upcoming campaigns. He has a 70 STR, so I'm a little dubious on allowing him to use this, but it does have potent advantages.

 

45 pt HKA

5x Endurance (-2)

Major Side Effect (Drain Body 3d6, occurs every time the power successfully strikes an opponent, Delayed Return Rate (5 minutes), -1/4)

Lockout (Locks out the Golden Glow (HtH) and Divine Glow (Forcefield) powers until the BODY drained by the Side Effect fully returns, -1/2)

45 Active Points, 12 Real Points

22.5 END per use

 

Thoughts on over all power? It's a basic 350 point Superhero game.

 

I thought about it: I wouldn't allow it. Realize that when he whips out that Killing Attack that it's a 6d6 KA, or 90 Active points which happens to be 20 pts more Active Power than his Strength. I think the player realizes this and threw on those disadvantages so he can get the power. I've seen that if players want a power bad enough, they will throw enough disadvantages on it so it can be used rarely but they nonetheless get the power.

 

Ultimately, it's your decision assuming you're the GM but realize this: sooner or later, that 6d6 KA is coming your way, whether it's a door, a villain or something else. Do you want a 6d6 KA thrown around in your campaign?

[Marcus]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Maybe I'm the weird one here...

 

Assuming a responsible player, I'm not sure I see a problem.

 

I'd consider some additional limitations, however. Specifically, limit it such that it can only be used with strike, and cannot be pushed (thus, no move-throughs, etc.)

 

Assuming your brick has at least 12" of movement, he can already do a 90 active point move-through. At an OCV penalty, granted, but the OCV penalty on a move-through is less penalizing than whats on this HKA.

 

What I would be wary of is this power, pushed, used in a move-through or the like.. which the above limitation rules out.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Personally, I think it's okay, particularly considering those limitations.

 

Yes, it *could* be viewed as a 'take out the big bad' power, but that's assuming he's going to win the Stun Lotto on it.

 

He's whipping out a 6d6 HKA, with no advantages (no AP, no Penetrating, no Increased Multiplier, none of the things that can usually make a high-powered HKA totally devastating). Average 21 Body and 42-63 Stun. Potentially 30 Body and 150 Stun, but if he pulls *that* off he *deserves* to level his foe.

 

Against somebody packing, say, standard recommended 'Brick PD', that'll be 6 Body that gets through and 12-33 stun on average.

 

My main question?

 

What's his CV?

 

Because if he botches his attack roll, he's blown 22 END for no real benefit. If he *hits*, he's sucking down an average of 5 Body, no benefit, and loses apparent access to two of his major 'standard powers' for the next 10 minutes.

 

I'm more concerned by a 70 STR character who's packing an HTH on top of it, myself.

[Memona]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

I'm more concerned by a 70 STR character who's packing an HTH on top of it, myself.

 

The Hand-to-Hand attack will not cause any problems. He doesn't get to add his STR. It's just an Armor Piercing attack against enemies who are harder to hurt.

[Comic]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Is it likely to unbalance play, or is it a special attack meant to be used once per session where an ordinary Haymaker would largely have the same effect?

 

As an HKA, even at the 9d6+1 level he's likely to push to when he uses it, it's still got a 50-50 shot of plinking. (True, it'd be a 33 BODY/66 STUN/22" KB plink, but..)

 

I'd be seriously unlikely to allow it. I might allow it if the 3d6 Body Drain were replaced with a 3d6 NND KA, and the campaign were extremely gritty.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

I'd be seriously unlikely to allow it. I might allow it if the 3d6 Body Drain were replaced with a 3d6 NND KA' date=' and the campaign were extremely gritty.[/quote']

 

My first balancer would be to require the Side Effect do damage that recovers normally, not over the course of about 10 minutes. I'd let him keep the Lockout on a 10 minute basis or so.

 

Note that a Major Side Effect would be a 3d6 killing Attack or 9d6 normal Attack. A 3d6 BOD drain that recovers every five minutes seems pretty lightweight by comparison.

 

But I'd also look at the impact a 6d6 KA may have on my game balance. Not knowing the power level of the other PC's, or adversaries, makes it tough to gauge how powerful this actually is.

[Marcus]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Thats an interesting side-issue, about the side effect chosen.

 

I've noticed that players often choose Drain for the side-effect-that-hurts-me of a power, and eschew hitting themselves with a killing attack.

 

This suggests to me that the 'automatically ignores your defenses' aspect of a side effect may be sufficiently punitive that noone will ever actually build a side-effect that invokes it.

 

It also suggests to me that Drain is (relatively) overpriced, if people would prefer to get hit by that than most other things.

[Checkmate]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

I would allow this power, but not on this character. The problem I have with it is the only limitations it really has is the Lockout. With a 70 STR, his Recovery is at least 16, probably closer to 20 making the x5 END a non-issue, and he has 25 BODY, so even if he rolls 3 6's on the drain he still has 7 BODY in a genre where BODY is almost never an issue (Champions), on a archetype that is the least likely to take BODY (Brick).

 

If it were more like Johnny Storm's Nova Power, that pretty much knocked him out after using it, I'd be more inclined to say yes.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The biggest issue I can see is that it allows for a 6d6 Killing Attack before factoring in any maneuver damage bonuses (like Haymaker and Move Through).

 

21+ Average Killing Body Damage is going to hurt some 'dedicated' bricks.

 

 

I forgot to mention Pushing.

 

Pushing the character's STR would have no effect but Pushing the HKA by just 10 active points would add 4 Damage Classes to the attack (2 for HKA plus 2 more for the 55 STR that can now be added to the 11 DC base damage).

 

Give the character just +1" of Leaping for a 15" total with his 70 STR and he can do a 9d6 HKA Move Though at only a -3 OCV.

 

With a slighty above average roll that could one shot KILL some dedicated Bricks!

[Hyper-Man]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The Hand-to-Hand attack will not cause any problems. He doesn't get to add his STR. It's just an Armor Piercing attack against enemies who are harder to hurt.

 

Just out of curiosity, was a Limitation taken on the character sheet to reflect that?

 

By RAW (rules as written) an Advantaged HA does get to add up to as many DC's (damage classes) from STR as the base HA has.

[Memona]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

Just out of curiosity, was a Limitation taken on the character sheet to reflect that?

 

Yeah. I was either going to allow Energy Blast with no range or Hand-to-Hand without adding any STR. I probably should have enforced the Energy Blast, but he has some Combat Skills which can be used for Hand-to-Hand attacks only. He plans to get more in the future.

[Checkmate]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The combat skills could still be used with the EB No range. Remember you're allowed to use SFX and Common Sense when designing characters. If the SFX is HtH and he has skill levels with HtH, then he could logically apply those even if the power is ranged by default.

[Tech]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

I do have one question though: if he's a hero, why is he wanting so much HKA? Why not just do a haymaker?

[jkwleisemann]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

My personal guess would be that he's pumping up an 'automata buster' power, but I couldn't be sure of that, obviously.

[Marcus]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

My first thought was "Energy Transfer", from City of Heros Energy Melee power set...

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

The power as set up is major, and I would have certain ... reservations against allowing something like this if I was the GM. UNLESS, that is, the Player had a derned good justification for how it fitted the Character concept. Haven't heard anything about this side of it, so I am inclined to make a snap judgement that this Player is just trying to rort the system.

 

On the other hand, OK, you can use it to do a mondo amount of damage to something / someone. But using it repeatedly in one combat seems pretty much out (which means you have ONE SHOT to get it right).

Also, certainly not recommended for use where collateral damage might be an issue - innocent bystanders, objects that are both valuable and fragile, other objects that are both explosive and fragile, or toxic and fragile, or ... you get the idea.

 

Otherwise, this concept sounds like a prime candidate for 'The Gilt Complex'.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

I do have one question though: if he's a hero' date=' why is he wanting so much HKA? Why not just do a haymaker?[/quote']

 

Does the Hero get to choose his powers, or does he get the powers that coincidence gave him? I don't think Ben Grimm asked to look like that, and I bet Reed Richards would have chosen a different power set given the opportunity to design his own powers.

[Vulcan]

Re: High STR + HKAs, thoughts

 

One does have to take into account that the player and the character are often referred to interchangably...