A limitation that does not limit

[Sean Waters]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

One thing that keeps popping into my head when looking at this thread, in specfic reference to the various defence permutations...

 

Campaign limits aren't the only thing to consider.

Sure more than 12 body isn't very common from most attacks in a 60 AP limit campaign, but you should remember that in every campaign I've ever played in (or ran) it's pretty easy to potentially be sucking up a 30d6 normal attack, so the "body only" limit still has value.

 

Of course, I suppose it's possible to have a campaign when there's no place a person could fall 105", but thus far I don't think I've been in one.

 

Environmental effects can be nastier than campaign limits.

Just sayin'

 

This is true, although I can only remember 3 occasions where maximum falling damage has been an issue. That is not because we play in FlatWorld, but because, generally, the GM is not interested in killing characters and we play enough of a story driven game that even if it 'should' happen, it rarely does. Thank goodness

 

The trouble with trying to balance defence limitations on an individual basis is that every character is different and you usually have no idea what challenges they will face - falling a couple of hundred metres, AP or Penetrating attacks, excellent rolls on killing attacks, or an NND Does Body. The only consistent 'defence' is high Body, but should we be reducing limitation values because someone has twice as much Body as someone else so damage through defences has less impact?

 

I'm thinking not.

 

Also I think 30d6 is simply too much for falling damage, but that is another issue entirely.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

This is true, although I can only remember 3 occasions where maximum falling damage has been an issue. That is not because we play in FlatWorld, but because, generally, the GM is not interested in killing characters and we play enough of a story driven game that even if it 'should' happen, it rarely does. Thank goodness

 

The trouble with trying to balance defence limitations on an individual basis is that every character is different and you usually have no idea what challenges they will face - falling a couple of hundred metres, AP or Penetrating attacks, excellent rolls on killing attacks, or an NND Does Body. The only consistent 'defence' is high Body, but should we be reducing limitation values because someone has twice as much Body as someone else so damage through defences has less impact?

 

I'm thinking not.

 

Also I think 30d6 is simply too much for falling damage, but that is another issue entirely.

My personal take on the issue is that standardized limits are far less madness inducing, and I err on the side of giving higher limitation values, because I think Limitations make powers interesting, powers are fun, and expensive powers can eat too many points, but that's my own metric.

Perhaps my old crew was simply too fond of environmental force multipliers, but we pretty frequently exploited the environment to advantage. Cliffs, gas stations, volatile liquid transport trucks (it worked for Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese), ejected starship reactors going critical... sometimes you just need to lash out more damage than your campaign limits

 

Granted... most of the times I can recall a PC taking a terminal velocity fall has been by choice... generally it's a situation devoutly to be avoided, tho I still have fond memories of my PC Rebel taking Sagittarius of the Zodiac off the top of a skyscraper with a move through, pummeling her on the way down to make sure she couldn't pull anything tricky, and counting on his (you guessed it) Body Only 50% DR to allow him to handle the impact better than she.

 

Which of course is the memory that triggered the above post

[Sean Waters]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

My personal take on the issue is that standardized limits are far less madness inducing, and I err on the side of giving higher limitation values, because I think Limitations make powers interesting, powers are fun, and expensive powers can eat too many points, but that's my own metric.

Perhaps my old crew was simply too fond of environmental force multipliers, but we pretty frequently exploited the environment to advantage. Cliffs, gas stations, volatile liquid transport trucks (it worked for Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese), ejected starship reactors going critical... sometimes you just need to lash out more damage than your campaign limits

 

Granted... most of the times I can recall a PC taking a terminal velocity fall has been by choice... generally it's a situation devoutly to be avoided, tho I still have fond memories of my PC Rebel taking Sagittarius of the Zodiac off the top of a skyscraper with a move through, pummeling her on the way down to make sure she couldn't pull anything tricky, and counting on his (you guessed it) Body Only 50% DR to allow him to handle the impact better than she.

 

Which of course is the memory that triggered the above post

 

I think there is probably some sort of racial memory trigger here: lots of people have excellent falling stories. I recall a were-leopard getting smacked through the hull of a Galxy transport about 7 miles up, splatting and then regenerating it all so he was back on his feet and fighting mad in about six seconds flat.

 

Also a Superman type and a really angry Estate Agent doing a deliberate power dive into Spain*. Every version of Earth we now play in has a huge crater somewhere near Buenos Noches.

 

 

 

* Don't ask

[JmOz]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

Personaly my view on limitations is as follows: How bad do you want it to hurt?

 

You want your OAF to be a -1/4 lim...ok I will rarely pick on it

 

Your OIHID is a -4...Ohh ok, you do realise this is equivilent to being only able to use a power a single time...EVER...this should be fun BWAH HA HA

[tesuji]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

Interesting to note that the strongman with focus example tends to elicit responses that the GM can compensate' date=' but other examples don't.[/quote']

 

See my sig... its a matter of degree. It all boils down to me that it doesn't matter what valu i charge for abilities as long as in play the expense and the gain are close enough to keep everyone happy with the perception of balance. I can make computer skill 13- much superior to 12d6 eb by circumstantial necessity but if i do that frequently AND charge the normal book prices for them, the players will get to wondering why they paid 50 cp for that eb.

 

The focus is easy since only one part of the overall limitation impact is reduced. The other circumstances are common enough that its easy to shift the events without it looking obvious.

 

On the other hand, the frequency of darkness dispelling powers is not common enough within the genre to warrant the -1 level of limitation.

 

Similarly, now this is just me, but the whole notion of taking not vs body on defenses above the norm is to me a non-limitation to begin with. its like trying to take a lim on con "doesn't add to speed" which is of no value of course because con normally oesn't add to speed. Well, in a 12dc campaign you also dont normally do body above 15 so there is no gain or rather very little gai9n. (the value of the lim should be dependent on how often this lim will cause the character to take additional body and that WILL depend on the overall defenses.) Its like taking a lim for "mechanically in hero most attacks do more stun than body" which is not a lim IMO.

 

So yeah i can compensate, or rather run a game to make the points work out, but the flip side of that is trying to get the points as close to what I will be running and in sync with that from the get go.

 

So -1 for the darkness only - nope. though if he insisted i would explain that what he insists on will be what he gets so no griping when half the time he finds his darkess power dispelled or some other means of triggering his lim to appear.

 

but the net result is to make the effectiveness and the cost charged for traits remain in play relatively in sync - tho on the larger scope - its more an issue of character balance which gets us back even further to "so why do all this math anyway if the gm will just be compensating." but thats my pet peeve. :-)

[Utech]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

Isn't that rather like saying' date=' 'If you play the character to maximise their abilities I'm going to dock some of your character points'?[/quote']

I certainly hope not!

 

I think it's like saying, "That Limitation doesn't limit your character very much so it's not worth much as a Limitation."

 

And I don't think that's very radical. I think it's following the RAW.

 

I mean it follows logically that a character doesn't use their full tactical array they are going to generally come second to someone who does' date=' but I can't see that changing their limtiation values is going to solve the problem or make for a better gaming experience.[/quote']

Honestly I'm not sure what problem you're referring to. I wasn't upset that the player wanted to use a certain combination of Powers and tactics -- I just thought the combination lessened the value of a particular Limitation. Again, I think the rules as written clearly indicate this is the way to go.

 

Ultimately we are all aiming for the same Nirvana - participation and enjoyment - we just differ on how to get there.

 

Which is as it should be

Agreed. Fun trumps all.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

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

Similarly, now this is just me, but the whole notion of taking not vs body on defenses above the norm is to me a non-limitation to begin with. its like trying to take a lim on con "doesn't add to speed" which is of no value of course because con normally oesn't add to speed. Well, in a 12dc campaign you also dont normally do body above 15 so there is no gain or rather very little gai9n. (the value of the lim should be dependent on how often this lim will cause the character to take additional body and that WILL depend on the overall defenses.) Its like taking a lim for "mechanically in hero most attacks do more stun than body" which is not a lim IMO.

 

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

 

There are some intriguing points throught his thread. It has certainly made me think about my position on this.

 

I have a bit of a confessiont hough - the defences not affecting Body thing was a bit cheeky on my part.

 

If you take Armour (doesn't stop Body damage) then you pay, in effect, 2 points for 2pd, or 2ed, or whatever. That is in fact the same as normal pd and ed which, if you have any resistant defences at all, will be more useful that the limited armour at the same price. We do that all the time without worrying about it and yet, if you think of limiting the armour, it rings alarm bells.

 

The argument about the limitation being limited works two ways of course: if there really is no realistic prospect of taking over (say) 15 Body in a given campaign, shouldn't we be discounting defences above that level?

 

I do think it is a matter of looking carefully at characters on a case by case basis, but as a general principle I also believe that we should not change basic limitation values unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

[tesuji]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

The argument about the limitation being limited works two ways of course: if there really is no realistic prospect of taking over (say) 15 Body in a given campaign, shouldn't we be discounting defences above that level?

 

Well its certainly up to each gm but my view point is "no" because it affects everybody equally so why bother with needless math? Simply put - dont make everyone do additional math unless it matters. Telling everyone "you can discount def's above 15 by -1/2 and it really wont every come into play, or hardly ever" is going to result in everyone doing the same point shavings for mostly the same defenses. It will affect those whose design is based around low def scores and DR to their detriment, and since i dont want to discourage those as opposed to the simpler high def guys, i dont see the benefit in making everyone jump thru more hoops to save some pts for a lim that wont matter.

 

basically if the diff between a character with the lim on def's above 15 and one with same scores but without the lim wont show up in play, then i wont let the lim be worth any points in accounting. Now, again it might show up once in a great while, but thats more of an sfx level issue not a lim level issue to me.

 

But again, this assumes the original statement about frequency is true. others keep chiming in with 30 body attacks being common and so forth which changes the issue.

 

 

I do think it is a matter of looking carefully at characters on a case by case basis, but as a general principle I also believe that we should not change basic limitation values unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

 

and I go te other way... i think the true value of a limitation, advantage and even power is highly subjective based on campaign and that trying to keep to static unchanging "book values" is the path towards having every campaign be the same, just with different colors. I want my fantasy game to not be supers-with-shields, and if there are fundamental differences in many aspects between supers and fantasy then there SHOULD be fundamental differences in VALUES assigned to things.

 

and this applies not just to lims and adv's but also to powers. IMX for instance life support costs should vary widely between campaigns. Water breathing in a port town vs a desert setting for instance... in one water breathing is likely huge while in the other extreme environment heat and going without food/drink are likely worth a lot more.

 

So i try to get my costs right "for this game i am running now" instead of trying to make my game fit the book costs.

 

a difference in preferences - i see it as making the game work for me (altering costs as appropriate) as opposed to me working for the game (making adjustments to encounters or choices based on keeping bookk costs the same.)

 

however - as a disclaimer - i never port characters directly from one game to another, always keeping things "for this game only" and so the universality is of little to no concern/value for me. for those routinely switching the same characters from setting to setting, i can see valuing portability over genre-flavor as reasonable.

[Istaran]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

Tesuji, I am sure it would not play out this way in practice, but I get the impression from your post that I would go crazy in a game GMed by you because I would need to run every idea I had by you to find out what it would cost before I can even decide what I want to build, and then get sent back to the drawing board as you review my character and decide because I have these three things, these other two things need to cost more. Once we get down to actual play, it'd probably be fine, but getting there would be a pain.

On the darkness/vampire guy question.. when I played a character with Darkness and a power that worked only in darkness (teleport from one shadow to another only) it was agreed at the start of the campaign that the Darkness power did not qualify. Simple enough! In such a case, the lim can be evaluated simply enough. In general though, the Limited Power limitation clearly calls out that it needs to be evaluated on a per-campaign basis. Obviously, "Only when in these naturally occuring circumstances or when using this other power" is a lesser limitation than Linked, so should be priced accordingly for the vampire.

[tesuji]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

Tesuji' date=' I am sure it would not play out this way in practice, but I get the impression from your post that I would go crazy in a game GMed by you because I would need to run every idea I had by you to find out what it would cost before I can even decide what I want to build, and then get sent back to the drawing board as you review my character and decide because I have these three things, these other two things need to cost more. Once we get down to actual play, it'd probably be fine, but getting there would be a pain.[/font']

My previous hero games do take a bit of time in initial chargen, deliberately so, as i would rather spend time upfront so everyone is on the same page as that tends to eliminate many speedbumps occuring in game. Things just run smoother i find with the back-n-forth being handled pre-game rather than running into it later on.

 

as for how much back and forth - it depends on how much stuff like this, interrealted stuff, you have. Most players in a supers game tend to go thru about two passes but some have been thru as many as five.

 

My players actually tend to think i am fairly easy, a creampuff who believes in "say YES unless i have a compelling reason to say no" as my golden rule of GMing - and they have learned over years of experience with me that, frankly, point shenaninigans aren't worth it because i have this unnerving tendency to make the price you pay actually turn out to be what the power ends up being worth in actual play.

 

Frankly i can balance in play most anything, IMX.

 

The focus on getting the points right early on for me isn't at all about game balance (since I believe thats set by the scenario and challenges) but rather on communication. If i let a power come thru at 10 pts cost due to various lims, i want to make sure both the player and i understand thats a pretty cheap power not worth all that much, not a potent ability he "snuck by me".

 

saves headache later on.

 

On the darkness/vampire guy question.. when I played a character with Darkness and a power that worked only in darkness (teleport from one shadow to another only) it was agreed at the start of the campaign that the Darkness power did not qualify. Simple enough! In such a case, the lim can be evaluated simply enough. In general though, the Limited Power limitation clearly calls out that it needs to be evaluated on a per-campaign basis. Obviously, "Only when in these naturally occuring circumstances or when using this other power" is a lesser limitation than Linked, so should be priced accordingly for the vampire.

 

I agree. limited and conditional powers are the ones which require to me the most evaluation - although as i stated earlier, to me, varying by setting applies a lot to even some common powers - which are priced according to a "generic superhero" standard but i very rarely run a generic superhero standard. I often run themed campaigns or even jus themed years where a large plot unfolds over the course of one-two years and often this means one set of something is more beneficial than others - like say holy powers during "undead invasion" (and maybe enchantments are less effective) or cold powers during "fire elementals invasion" and so forth or maybe AP attacks are better during earth elementals run amok etc.

 

However, for my games the development is done about 90% AFTER I have the PCs. I start a campaign with a 3 week "shakedown" session planned leaving a number of loose ends and really decide on most major plot courses and such during that three week periond AFTER I have the pcs and can see what traits make them unique and can be used to spotlight them. So if none of them have computers - i dont spin the campaign into cyberspace and so forth.

 

So maybe you wouldn't find me as difficult to design and run under as you think!

 

:-)

[JmOz]

Re: A limitation that does not limit

 

I said something earlier that I feel was overlooked so I will repeat myself and give a little more detail.

 

You can leave the level of the limitation up to the player, the larger the limitation the more it hinders, the less it is the less it hinders. So a character might have a OAF that is only a -1/4 and rarely gets effected or might have an IIF that seems to always get stolen.

 

Another example would be a character who has a -1/4 Only in water limitation, well for some reason there always seems to be a body of water near by, why -2 not in water seems to always be wet...

 

Of course with this system a GM needs to be willing to say that he does not think he can make that limitation that value, and TALK to the player about compromising...