Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

[Certified]

Okay, kind of a funny moments question. What powers or builds have you allowed without realizing the consequences they might cause? Minor powers that turned into game changers or builds you thought might be too powerful that ended up falling show, however it goes lets hear the story.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

I don't often create powers that break games, I try to be really careful. Even when I create potentially game breaking powers I try to play responsibly.

 

I have a character with Multiform, one form has Duplication (with cannot recomine) of 32 Duplicates. they also have Enraged (when hurt) and Accidental Change (when hurt) to represent an underlying animal instinct.

 

On a very early run a sniper blasted them, the Accidental Change shifted them to the Duplicated Form, and they went Enraged and failed a recovery roll.

 

Turns out, the "non combat" form was Excessively Effective at combat. Things went badly, very very badly, for the enemy. The GM and I were both kind of stunned by the whole thing.

[Lairian]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Desolidification (only versus knockback damage, persistant and all that goes with). He wanted his brick to be subject to knockback, but never actually harmed when thrown through walls/trashcans/pillars.

 

Made for great cinema I'll admit, but it came up far, far more often than I anticipated.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

I once accidentally allowed every character in my group to have some form of invisibility (invisibility for 2 characters, change environment for 1 character, darkness for 1 character, and high stealth for the last).

 

Me - Phase 12, the enemy team approaches. What do you guys do?

Player 1 - I activate my "mental invisibility" power

Player 2 - I cast a spell to turn invisible too

Player 3 - I take a half-move to fly upwards, and then I summon a fog to conceal myself

Player 4 - I shroud myself in darkness

player 5 - I hide in the nearby shadows

Me - *facepalm*

[Certified]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Yep Facepalm... the only logical next action.

[bubba smith]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

or give the bad guys infra red scanners to detect invisibilty

[Certified]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

or give the bad guys infra red scanners to detect invisibilty

 

That's true but I think the League of Extraordinary Chickens should have their day.

[bubba smith]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

That's true but I think the League of Extraordinary Chickens should have their day.

is that norvil"shaggy" rogers family reuinion?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

One oops that I had was a telekinetic character who could fly and (of course) TK objects around. With multiple applications of the power, he could TK the whole party and airlift them out of dangerous areas, but of course it cost lots of END to do that, so he could only maintain it for a few PHA. Except there was a mentalist in the group that could heal END faster than the TK character spent it, meaning they skipped half the adventure by flying everywhere. Doh!

[Houston GM]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

It didn't come as a complete surprise (I'd told the player that I'd let him have it on a trial basis), but I found out that a PRE over 60 is extremely potent.

 

You can frequently cause most of the opposing team (particularly the minions) to lose their action and be at 0 DCV for a phase, since it's not too difficult to get a presence attack which is EGO or PRE +30.

 

And then you can repeat the presense attack on the next phase with just 1d6 less.

 

Fortunately I realized how abusive this could be before the player did, so I made him tone it back to a more reasonable level before the next session.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

I once accidentally allowed every character in my group to have some form of invisibility (invisibility for 2 characters, change environment for 1 character, darkness for 1 character, and high stealth for the last).

 

Me - Phase 12, the enemy team approaches. What do you guys do?

Player 1 - I activate my "mental invisibility" power

Player 2 - I cast a spell to turn invisible too

Player 3 - I take a half-move to fly upwards, and then I summon a fog to conceal myself

Player 4 - I shroud myself in darkness

player 5 - I hide in the nearby shadows

Me - *facepalm*

 

 

 

Good for them. Attack the enemy from hiding. The smart course of action.

[Lucius]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Good for them. Attack the enemy from hiding. The smart course of action.

 

Or avoid the battle if it does not have to be fought.

 

If the villains are there just to fight, let them be disappointed.

 

If they're there to commit some other crime, interrupt them while they're trying to commit it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Invisible Palindromedary.

[GhoulMaster]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Whole team with Mind Link, Teamwork, and players who are willing to have they're characters do as the leader says (in a fight if not outside).

 

We'd learned the hard way in a earlier game how much real teamwork can do. The new GM had no idea. We wiped the floor with his bad guys.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Or avoid the battle if it does not have to be fought.

 

If the villains are there just to fight, let them be disappointed.

 

If they're there to commit some other crime, interrupt them while they're trying to commit it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Invisible Palindromedary.

 

 

You're right. I lost focus. I'd rep you if I could!

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Told this story before, but it is a good one fully in the spirit of this thread.

 

Not me, but a friend of mine had set up an early-edition Champions campaign when Transformation Attacks had only JUST come into the rules.

 

Yeah, some of you will be thinking "Uh, oh" already.

 

In any case, my best friend, a deeply warped individual, created a character called 'Bonsai' (yes, the Character was Japanese, and his battle-cry was ... need I say more?). Bonsai's schtick was shrinking stuff, and he had various flavours of Transform to do this - one to shrink people but not their clothing, another for vice versa, and another for both. Plus Autofire..

 

The group's first big fight is with a sea monster, kind of a super-Megalodon. The GM, poor fool, fully expected this battle to be EPIC.

 

It wasn't. First round, Bonsai put his Transform on full Auto and basically hosed the beast with it. Shrank it down to goldfish size before it could even blink (cumulative effect). Whereupon another PC used his relatively modest TK to scoop said beast up in a jar of seawater. The GM's awesome creation ended up in a small decorative aquarium in the group's base.

 

I am pretty sure that was the only time that guy ever tried to GM Champions.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Just curious, did he mean to name himself after tiny trees or did he mean his name to be "Banzai"?

[Certified]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Told this story before, but it is a good one fully in the spirit of this thread.

 

Not me, but a friend of mine had set up an early-edition Champions campaign when Transformation Attacks had only JUST come into the rules.

 

Yeah, some of you will be thinking "Uh, oh" already.

 

In any case, my best friend, a deeply warped individual, created a character called 'Bonsai' (yes, the Character was Japanese, and his battle-cry was ... need I say more?). Bonsai's schtick was shrinking stuff, and he had various flavours of Transform to do this - one to shrink people but not their clothing, another for vice versa, and another for both. Plus Autofire..

 

The group's first big fight is with a sea monster, kind of a super-Megalodon. The GM, poor fool, fully expected this battle to be EPIC.

 

It wasn't. First round, Bonsai put his Transform on full Auto and basically hosed the beast with it. Shrank it down to goldfish size before it could even blink (cumulative effect). Whereupon another PC used his relatively modest TK to scoop said beast up in a jar of seawater. The GM's awesome creation ended up in a small decorative aquarium in the group's base.

 

I am pretty sure that was the only time that guy ever tried to GM Champions.

 

I can only picture this once great sea beast fearful of tiny sea things... oh no it's a jelly fish... swim swim swim...

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Just curious' date=' did he mean to name himself after tiny trees or did he mean his name to be "Banzai"?[/quote']

 

He knows the differance. Recall I said he was deeply warped - he likes punning. Need I say more?

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

He likes punning. Need I say more?

Yes, please do. Your response doesn't really answer my question. Did he know he used the "wrong" word or did he choose that word on purpose? If the latter, why? It's a pun most English speakers wouldn't get, and I'm not sure it is much of a pun in Japanese, despite how similar they sound to us. So I am still curious as to his intentions in choosing the name he did.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Yes, please do. Your response doesn't really answer my question. Did he know he used the "wrong" word or did he choose that word on purpose? If the latter, why? It's a pun most English speakers wouldn't get, and I'm not sure it is much of a pun in Japanese, despite how similar they sound to us. So I am still curious as to his intentions in choosing the name he did.

 

#SIGH#

 

As I already said, yes, he knows the differance. It was his idea of humour, and I compliment you on successfully murdering every iota of humour in this conversation.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Quite frankly I thought the story was hilarious. I enjoyed it a lot. I’ll probably share it with other gamer friends and geeks outside of this website. Thank you for sharing it. I did not, however, get the supposed pun. I still don’t. If you had said “It was his idea of humour” the first time instead of “he likes punning” I wouldn’t have asked again. For all I knew he actually knows Japanese and it really is clever, though I’ve never heard it used that way. Sorry for being curious.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

...well, anyway, that is a very amusing story, and to be honest if I have to have one of my intended epic battles turn out in a completely unexpected manner... I'd be consoled by the rather cool, color adding background detail of the thing ending up in the team's aquarium.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

...well' date=' anyway, that is a very amusing story, and to be honest if I have to have one of my intended epic battles turn out in a completely unexpected manner... I'd be consoled by the rather cool, color adding background detail of the thing ending up in the team's aquarium.[/quote']

 

Indeed. It would probably make chores like cleaning said aquarium rather exciting, too. Unfortunately, it was all too much for the GM.

[Peregrine]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

Indeed. It would probably make chores like cleaning said aquarium rather exciting' date=' too. Unfortunately, it was all too much for the GM.[/quote']

 

Sometimes, learning your limitations as a GM is a painful experience. I've been there myself, which is why I usually don't try to GM, despite my intermittent worldbuilding.

[Zed-F]

Re: Whoops! Did I really allow that power?

 

It didn't come as a complete surprise (I'd told the player that I'd let him have it on a trial basis), but I found out that a PRE over 60 is extremely potent.

 

You can frequently cause most of the opposing team (particularly the minions) to lose their action and be at 0 DCV for a phase, since it's not too difficult to get a presence attack which is EGO or PRE +30.

 

And then you can repeat the presense attack on the next phase with just 1d6 less.

 

Fortunately I realized how abusive this could be before the player did, so I made him tone it back to a more reasonable level before the next session.

High PRE is only abusive if the GM lets it be abusive. There are lots of ways to house rule around it without crippling the high-PRE character as a concept. 60 points worth of PRE is a 60 AP power and should be appropriately effective for the cost.

 

A good start would be to say you can only use PRE attacks when it's dramatically appropriate -- it's not something that's done in-genre every 2 seconds. You might launch a PRE attack when a fight is first joined, but otherwise it's generally only going to be at a pivotal moment. Also, you might want to institute a mook rule for PRE attacks -- as in they work as described on mooks, but name villains are made of sterner stuff and can't be effected beyond the PRE+20 level, for instance. Master villains or other big threats may be entirely immune, and/or have enough PRE to be unaffected.

 

And always remember, what's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.