Invisible character

[quozaxx]

I have a player in my champaign that is invisible and desolid. She can be affected by magic when desolid.

 

Thus she is invisible to Radar, Sonar, Smell, Sight, Hearing, and Mystical.

 

How could a villain "see" her. I have used the Mental and Danger Sense group. But how could a "normal" villain see her?

 

I don't want to use the normal sight trick over and over again.

 

"Oh, he has the unusual group" or "Oh, she can affect the 'no sense" group"

[Doc Samson]

Re: Invisible character

 

Preface #1 - Invisibility plus Desolidification is a banned combination in many games I have played in due to the issue you are dealing with now (but see #2).

 

Preface #2 - I'm not sure what you meant by the "normal sight trick" but any character has chance to detect the location of an Invisible character per the rules on 5ER pg. 422.

 

Preface #3 - If the character also has Affects Physical World on an attack power, your player is a Munchkin.

 

1. Remember, unless her attacks are bought with IPE, her location will be discovered when she attacks (rules on pages 192, 261, and 422).

 

2. Does she have No Fringe on her Invisibility? If not, anyone who discovers her location (as above), could engage her in HTH without penalties.

 

3. "Normal" villains are going to have a very tough time with this type of character. You will need to give the occasional "Normal" either Combat Sense (a Talent any Norm could have) or special equipment for dealing with Invisibles (Spatial Awareness goggles, Dispel Invisibility powder - i.e. "a bag of flower", ect.).

 

4. AE and Explosion Attacks target hexes so Invisible characters don't have any advantage when a villain lobs a grenade down a narrow hallway or the character steps on a hidden land mine.

 

5. "What's good for the goose..." As it is such an effective tactic, don't be afraid to have your villains try to level the playing field either with powers (smoke grenade Darkness and Flash bombs) or simple tactics like turning the lights out or using the Stealth skill.

 

I'll add more later if I think of anything.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

I don't have my book handy but doesn't Desolidification count as a standard power so must have a special effect visible to three sense groups?

[Kal'El Wayne]

Re: Invisible character

 

I believe that Desolid does indeed require three senses that can detect it. Usually these are covered by Sight (I see that person but my fist passes straight through, strange!), Smell (Hmm, I smell a person's scent up to this solid wall but the trail only picks up again on the exact opposite side!) and Hearing (Hearing you scream, the vampire turns quickly enough to see you jump back through the wall.). Another alternative would be Mental (I know you're there, Insert Name-Here!), Electromagnetic (So that normal human agents with the right equipment can detect her and to give it that 'ghost' feel) and mirror reflections (as in, she still reflects but only in actual mirrors, not reflective surfaces).

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

So it wouldn't be an entirely unreasonable call to say that to be totally undetectable the character would have to IPE on her Desolidification too. Expensive prospect for a character that couldn't really do much except be easy to ignore unless the game is really high point total.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Invisible character

 

I believe Invisibility covers most (but not all) Body Affecting powers as well.

From 5ER, pg. 193:

Typically Invisibility covers Body-Affecting

Powers such as Stretching or Growth, preventing

others from perceiving their use via the Sense

Groups the Invisibility covers. The GM can make

exceptions to this in the interest of common

sense, dramatic sense, and game balance. For

example, a Duplicate wouldn’t automatically be

covered by the original character’s Invisibility,

and an Invisible character who uses Multiform to

change shape into another form may no longer

have access to his Invisibility.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

Huh that's an odd call for Desolidification.

 

But the character has still sunk allot of points (and possibly burning Endurance) into largely being ignorable except as a spy/scout in some cases. Seems the like player is really invested in his character not being hurt?

[quozaxx]

Re: Invisible character

 

Preface #1 - Invisibility plus Desolidification is a banned combination in many games I have played in due to the issue you are dealing with now (but see #2).

 

Preface #2 - I'm not sure what you meant by the "normal sight trick" but any character has chance to detect the location of an Invisible character per the rules on 5ER pg. 422.

 

Preface #3 - If the character also has Affects Physical World on an attack power, your player is a Munchkin.

 

1. Remember, unless her attacks are bought with IPE, her location will be discovered when she attacks (rules on pages 192, 261, and 422).

 

2. Does she have No Fringe on her Invisibility? If not, anyone who discovers her location (as above), could engage her in HTH without penalties.

 

3. "Normal" villains are going to have a very tough time with this type of character. You will need to give the occasional "Normal" either Combat Sense (a Talent any Norm could have) or special equipment for dealing with Invisibles (Spatial Awareness goggles, Dispel Invisibility powder - i.e. "a bag of flower", ect.).

 

4. AE and Explosion Attacks target hexes so Invisible characters don't have any advantage when a villain lobs a grenade down a narrow hallway or the character steps on a hidden land mine.

 

5. "What's good for the goose..." As it is such an effective tactic, don't be afraid to have your villains try to level the playing field either with powers (smoke grenade Darkness and Flash bombs) or simple tactics like turning the lights out or using the Stealth skill.

 

I'll add more later if I think of anything.

 

She does have no fringe.

All of her powers are "affect physical world".

I think the main trouble is finding where she is in the first place, then I can attack her.

She does have images (affects physical world)- but images are usually away from the character

 

So it would be easy for her to become invisible (she's always desolid), set up an image. Attack from behind.

 

A bag of flour would just pass through her.

 

I really like the darkness and flash attacks.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

I have to ask: What is the point level of this campaign?

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

I Mystical.

 

What do you mean by the "Mystical" sense group? Also, AFAIK, you can't get blanket immunity to the "Unusual" sense group.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Invisible character

 

I had an Invisible character, now retired. The GM did have somewhat of the same issue (I didn't have Desolid, that would have been excessively mean in this campaign). For the most part, he concentrated on the other PCs, meaning other PCs suffered more attacks because I was a non-target.

 

when he did want to affect me:

 

Paint Bucket: Suppress Invisibility Sight Group.

 

Remember; you can't buy Invisibility: Unusual Group, so you can occasionally toss an odd detect at them (any such thing worked once on my character before they adapted to it).

 

Detect Life Force; Sense; Ranged; Targeting came up once.

 

Others I had to dodge over the lifespan of the campaign: Humans, Evil, Souls and Auras. Though this was spread over about 7 years so it didn't feel redundant.

 

Also, if they didn't put Reduced Endurance:0END on those Powers, they can probably only keep up that trick for so long.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

I had an Invisible character, now retired. The GM did have somewhat of the same issue (I didn't have Desolid, that would have been excessively mean in this campaign). For the most part, he concentrated on the other PCs, meaning other PCs suffered more attacks because I was a non-target.

 

I bet they loved you for it

 

I was wondering about Endurance too. She must be burning a ton of it a phase.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Invisible character

 

Chemical communicators (AAPs - Alien Ant People) could perhaps "taste" her (or her pheromonal excretions) at range.

[quozaxx]

Re: Invisible character

 

I have to ask: What is the point level of this campaign?

 

350 pt character.

As for "mystic"... I need to talk to her about that. Because, her desolid is affected by magic / mystic Thanks for pointing this out.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

The character has

 

Invisibility with No Fringe vs Sight, Hearing, Radar and Smell (or does that come gratis with Desolidification?) and Desolidification, and Image Affects Real World and at least one Affects Real World Attack power that's potent enough to actually be an issue in the. All either at 0 Endurance or enough Endurance to keep it up for meaningful amount of time on 350 points.

 

That's impressive

[Doc Samson]

Re: Invisible character

 

She does have no fringe.

All of her powers are "affect physical world".

I think the main trouble is finding where she is in the first place, then I can attack her.

She does have images (affects physical world)- but images are usually away from the character

 

So it would be easy for her to become invisible (she's always desolid), set up an image. Attack from behind.

 

A bag of flour would just pass through her.

 

I really like the darkness and flash attacks.

Please see my preface #3. IMHO this is a non-build. "Can't be hurt but can hurt others" is not a playable build IMHO. I'm not sure why you are asking how "Normals" could affect such a character. Even assuming Magic is a common enough SFX in your game, Normals wouldn't have it otherwise I don't think they are Normals.

 

I hope that doesn't sound condescending as that is not my intent. What I think may be going on is that perhaps you guys (or gals) are new to the system and haven't yet set up any house rules. To put it simply, without some restrictions, it is very easy to build character that are not able to be challenged and are not fun (IMHO) to play. Please see 5ER pgs. 545-547 for advice on character balancing.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Invisible character

 

I bet they loved you for it

 

Well, one character had such a psychotically high DCV (approaching 30) and several Powers that made even AoE attacks only work half the time... so that left one viable target - our "brick" - shoulda renamed her Pinball because that's all she was.

 

 

Invisibility, especially at high levels, can cause a lot of problems in your standard Champions game. Our game was very high powered (ended at over 900 point characters) and so extreme builds and concepts were actually in concept.

 

It doesn't sound like the same thing is going on in the OPs campaign. You might want to ask the Player to choose either Invisibility or Desolid.

 

If they're worried about being "detected" by Touch or Ranged Touch (possibly Spatial Awareness) powers you could allow Invis:Touch Group as a sort of low level "there but not there" type of desolid. That way damage can get to them if they're detected.

[nexus]

Re: Invisible character

 

Well, one character had such a psychotically high DCV (approaching 30) and several Powers that made even AoE attacks only work half the time... so that left one viable target - our "brick" - shoulda renamed her Pinball because that's all she was.

 

Ouch. Did the player distress over it?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Invisible character

 

Ouch. Did the player distress over it?

 

Not really. Each of us had some very specialized roles in the group, and we had an amazingly good ability to work as a team, unlike a lot of Champions games I've been in where it's a group of Supers this was definitely a well honed team of destruction - typical combats laster 4 phases. If we got to Phase 6 we started to worry, if we reached Phase 10 the fight was either amazingly large or really weighted against us. It ended as one of those games where combat was short, excessively brutal (I could deliver a 6D6KA fully IPE with an array of +1 Advantages at my disposal) the Speedster was a Speed 12 DEX 48 Missile Reflecting monster and you had to do over 200 Stun to the brick to Stun them.

 

It was a good example of niche character synergy that allowed for everyone to have fun.

So, no real resentment or distress was to be had - since there were only three PCs the player with the brick not only understood she was the main target simply because she could actually get hit by the enemy, but took the role to heart and tried to work it to set up good shots for the other two to deal the offensive damage with. We had such a well oiled plan that we no longer even had to discuss how to take out targets, we started to work on an instinctive level of coordination.

It's also worth a note that the game was not combat-centric. We once went almost 10 sessions before even moving to Combat Time.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Invisible character

 

IMO, kill that character -- or at least have a "radiation accident" -- and have the player remake it into something playable.

[Korvar]

Re: Invisible character

 

I had a character in one game I ran who had invisibility and shrinking, so that the -8 penalty to perception would apply to the invisibility's fringe.

[Kal'El Wayne]

Re: Invisible character

 

Since reading the mentions of 'mystical' sense group, I had a few more good ideas. Since at least some of her powers come from 'mystical' sources, I though having her desolid be detectable by 'mystic' sources would be a good idea. She can be invisible to 'mystical' spells all she wants, but she can't turn ghostly (her desolid) without showing up as a powerful ghost to mystical sight. On the other hand, she can choose to remain solid to avoid detection by wizards and the like, and risk getting caught in magical AoE spells.

 

Also note, you said mystical sense. Demon sight and Mage vision are two very different things in my campaigns (Mage vision detects magical auras, Demon sight detects souls/angels/demons.) so having her immune the mystical sense (mage vision) doesn't mean she's immune to 'interdimensional traveller' senses (Demon sight, or Angelic sonar, or even just phased-wave detecting antennae on the noble ant-rulers of Earth-X.)

 

And of course, my GM just reminded me, sometimes (as in, if you didn't take 'Invisible to thermal-vision' as a power) a desolid character still leaves a heat trail, like any other living thing. So any mook with thermal goggles will be able to find the character. It's not too common, since thermal goggles aren't cheap or widely available, and they still need to find her (not just her heat trail, leading to a wall), but it's possible for normals without powers or magic to use this to find her.

[quozaxx]

Re: Invisible character

 

Her Invisibility does cost END, but her Desolid doesn't

 

"Normal" - is like VIPER agents that know that she does this invisible / desolid / image thing (word is getting around) and thus can prepare (hence the question)

 

Which is why I have done Danger Sense (with Tracking added) and Detect based on the Mental group

 

As for scrapping her - I'd rather not. All in all he (playing a she) is one of the better players. Works well with others, thinks up the best group plans, plays the character to a "T", etc. Plus we've been playing for almost 4 months now. I'd hate to walk in and say "Sorry Got to scrap your character and start over". - That just sounds mean.

 

Which is why I'm asking this board for creative ways around my original decision to keep the character.

[jtelson]

Re: Invisible character

 

If it's reasonable for the villians to plan for her presence then detection isn't that important. Grenades laced with mystical metals (Viper hit the Museum and passed on some obviously valuable targets for an empty metal sarcophagus, why do they want Orichalcum?), Professionals from Out of Town (The Underworld is abuzz, she's coming - and the mysitcs are leaving the city ).

 

It is important though not to overdo the 'anti' effects. No one likes feeling like the punching bag for every arc.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Invisible character

 

If it's reasonable for the villians to plan for her presence then detection isn't that important. Grenades laced with mystical metals (Viper hit the Museum and passed on some obviously valuable targets for an empty metal sarcophagus, why do they want Orichalcum?), Professionals from Out of Town (The Underworld is abuzz, she's coming - and the mysitcs are leaving the city ).

 

It is important though not to overdo the 'anti' effects. No one likes feeling like the punching bag for every arc.

If you have decided to make the best of it, the above advice is spot on. Use enough preparation to make it challenging, but don't overdo it so that the player suddenly feels the powers are a waste.