PI or Not?

[Sean Waters]

I want this sort of continuous cold field around me that chills opponents and slows them. So: 1d6 Drain (SPD) AoE (Radius) E2A 22 points

 

I want to add the limitation 'does not work against targets with 'LS: Cold or specific cold insulation defences'. That's worth -0 or -1/4, I'm guessing.

 

Now the character HAS LS: Cold AND specific cold insulation defences.

 

1. Does that affect the limitation value?

 

2. Should I be buying PI anyway?

[jtelson]

Re: PI or Not?

 

If something happens to your life support should you be affected by the power?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: PI or Not?

 

Assuming the character's life support is innate, I'd say no to both. Personal Immunity would be a third level of redundancy, and the limitation on the power really applies more to other people in the field.

 

If the character's life support/insulation is focussed, you might consider it just in case someone breaks the focus; I can't imagine any effect that would specifically suppress/dispel the Life Support itself.

[Sean Waters]

Re: PI or Not?

 

If something happens to your life support should you be affected by the power?

 

If you lose the LS you would be affected by the power...but it is not 'always on', you you could just switch it off before you froze yourself solid

[jtelson]

Re: PI or Not?

 

If you lose the LS you would be affected by the power...but it is not 'always on'' date=' you you could just switch it off before you froze yourself solid [/quote']

 

Then no Personal Immunity

[Sean Waters]

Re: PI or Not?

 

Cool

[tesuji]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I take a more hardline approach.

 

if someone wanted to take a "limitation" at -0 "doesn't work vs guys named Sapphire" i would not then allow them to take the name Sapphire and avoid the cost of PI.

 

Similarly I would not allow "doesn't work vs this trait i have" to allow them to skirt the cost of PI.

 

By the same practice i would not allow you to gain free PI for your eb or chill by taking the -0 limitation "not against this thing i happen to have". This is regardless of whether or not the limitation is actually worth points - a limitation CANNOT give you good effects - at least no custom limitation should.

 

Now if you wanna buy your PI as "linked to LS" to show that losing LS turns off the PI, thats fine, but NO i would not give you free PI by dint of you taking a limitation.

[jtelson]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I take a more hardline approach.

 

if someone wanted to take a "limitation" at -0 "doesn't work vs guys named Sapphire" i would not then allow them to take the name Sapphire and avoid the cost of PI.

 

Similarly I would not allow "doesn't work vs this trait i have" to allow them to skirt the cost of PI.

 

By the same practice i would not allow you to gain free PI for your eb or chill by taking the -0 limitation "not against this thing i happen to have". This is regardless of whether or not the limitation is actually worth points - a limitation CANNOT give you good effects - at least no custom limitation should.

 

Now if you wanna buy your PI as "linked to LS" to show that losing LS turns off the PI, thats fine, but NO i would not give you free PI by dint of you taking a limitation.

 

I'm not certain I agree with the premise, 'a limitation CANNOT give you good effects'.

 

I buy an AOE 'only effects Warm Blooded Beings'; a legitimate limit; next week a new player joins playing The Magnificent Lizardo and his hoarde of trained iguana. Do I now need to find a way to make Lizardo's iguana immune to my attack so that they don't pop like baloons when entering it despite my nemesis Madam Mako's fiendish friends having always been immune?

 

Sean's power build seems legitimate and appropriate to the sfx - having a character appropriate defense against a well reasoned power doesn't seem inappropriate at all;

[tesuji]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I'm not certain I agree with the premise, 'a limitation CANNOT give you good effects'.

 

I buy an AOE 'only effects Warm Blooded Beings'; a legitimate limit; next week a new player joins playing The Magnificent Lizardo and his hoarde of trained iguana. Do I now need to find a way to make Lizardo's iguana immune to my attack so that they don't pop like baloons when entering it despite my nemesis Madam Mako's fiendish friends having always been immune?

 

Sean's power build seems legitimate and appropriate to the sfx - having a character appropriate defense against a well reasoned power doesn't seem inappropriate at all;

 

 

Well the core rules have examples of limitations which do indeed give good benefits - charges is the most obvious example.

 

But for my money, for custom lims, I prefer for lims to be lims and advantages to be advantages and not to have a single element modifer that goes both ways. there is a very nasty opening there when you start allowing custom lims to grant capabilities that are not purchased, advantageous ones.

 

As for the iguana example, this has two aspects which put it into a differnt category for me.

 

First there is a huge difference between rendering yourself immune and having others be immune. having yourself immune is going to come up more often in all likelihood and is always desirable. After mind controlling from Professor Lizard, you might want to have them affected by your aoe. In other words, as Gm i can make "the iguanas are safe" an actual problem for you, a limiting factor now and again, whereas it has to be a very contrived example for me to make "you cannot hurt yourself" a problem worthy of the term "limitation". Thats why PI is an advantage all its own.

 

Second, you raise a very noticeable issue far broader in scope than PI - what does adding new characters do to existing characters scores - particularly if those scores have expected frequencies. This is no different than "power only works when strong mag fields are present" powers scored at VERY CHEAP but then a character with SFX strong magnetic joins. What do we do? Do we recost the limited powers now that they can be used every day charging the existing guy a lot of xp? Do we just say "hey you get a lot more powerful for free" and give up on the whole cost = effectiveness? Do we charge the incoming character a price for his sfx? The issue of "adding new character" throwing off the expected values of pre-existing ones is a tricky issue. Some GMs might just rule the incoming haracter "must not break" already existing characters and thus disallow the iguana guy since it breaks the current model for the existing pc. This is much akin to restricting new pcs from coming into a game if they would "step on the toes" of the other.

 

But regardless, i am not usually in the camp of "so what give them the free powers" especially when it comes to interactions of powers of a single character. I ought not to be able to buy "for free" advantages like PI by just coming up with a clever lim.

 

imo that is.

 

I mean that would be like buying flight that works underwater by saying "i buy flight and take a lim for "half speed underwater" even though without any sort of advantage Normal flight wont work underwater.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I take a more hardline approach.

 

if someone wanted to take a "limitation" at -0 "doesn't work vs guys named Sapphire" i would not then allow them to take the name Sapphire and avoid the cost of PI.

 

Similarly I would not allow "doesn't work vs this trait i have" to allow them to skirt the cost of PI.

 

By the same practice i would not allow you to gain free PI for your eb or chill by taking the -0 limitation "not against this thing i happen to have". This is regardless of whether or not the limitation is actually worth points - a limitation CANNOT give you good effects - at least no custom limitation should.

 

Now if you wanna buy your PI as "linked to LS" to show that losing LS turns off the PI, thats fine, but NO i would not give you free PI by dint of you taking a limitation.

 

At that point, though, you're making him pay for immunity to the power twice.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: PI or Not?

 

A character with an NND and the power that blocks the NND is also automatically immune. Should he also be made to pay for PI? Granted, the power in question is not NND

 

Maybe Sean should consider building it as NND; that would leave a lot less immune targets. This would probably be an even more effective option in 6e as vs Power Defense is presumably up a bit on the AVAD charts already.

 

PI would cost 2-3 points, so it's an easy addon anyway.

[tesuji]

Re: PI or Not?

 

At that point' date=' though, you're making him pay for immunity to the power twice.[/quote']

 

No.

 

he is gaining the usual benefits from having life support - just like he paid for.

and he is gaining the benefit from having pi to his chill power - just like he paid for.

and he is getting a slight cost break if the pi is linked to his ls.

 

think of it this way PI is the ability being boguht, the LS is just the sfx for why he can buy pi. having good sfx doesn't mean its free abilities.

 

what he is being denied is the ability to make his 2 cp life support vs cold be actually freely worth say 12 cp (the cost of pi) because he placed a clever -0 lim on his power. spending 2 to gain 12 is wrong.

 

consider the following:

 

Kaballic word of power Confusion KWOPC

Mind control 10d6 +1 AOE radius -1/2 no range -1/4 incantations -1/4 set effect roll on confusion chart.

SFX: ancient kaballic incantation confuse those hearing them.

 

this costs 50 cp straight up.

the character using this is obviously affected by the power. This give it a serious problem.

 

Add in PI and the cost changes to 56 and so for 6 cp he gets to use it safely.

 

now along comes clever player trick number 1 - buy cheap to save.

 

he adds -0 "does not affect those who speak kaballic" based on the clever notion that understanding the words removes their power.

That player then buys 2 cp language kaballic"

so now for 52 cp he is immune too.

 

can i throw enough kaballic speaking bad guys to offset that +2 OCV with main attack he buys for those 4 cp?

 

doubtful.

 

instead i get better math is i let him buy PI and give him the same net cost as the full guy, which seems fine since he is taking a -0 lim.

 

-0 lims should not alter cost and they certainly should not provide positive benefits for free.

[tesuji]

Re: PI or Not?

 

A character with an NND and the power that blocks the NND is also automatically immune. Should he also be made to pay for PI? Granted, the power in question is not NND

 

Maybe Sean should consider building it as NND; that would leave a lot less immune targets. This would probably be an even more effective option in 6e as vs Power Defense is presumably up a bit on the AVAD charts already.

 

PI would cost 2-3 points, so it's an easy addon anyway.

 

since NND is an advantage, and one which already has a built in kill switch as part of its cost, i have very little problem with it providing some small synergistic benefits.

 

This is a far cry from "i take -0" providing some small synergistic benefits.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I'd call it a wash and let it be a -0 Limitation. He already has No Range on the power, so he can't use it on targets far away. He paid a few points for the Life Support, and is willing to be affected by the power if the LS is Drained/Suppressed. Others with the same LS will be unaffected, even when he might want to affect them.

 

I guess what it really needs is PI and a limitation between -0 and -1/4. But even the PI isn't quite a true PI since it depends on the LS.

 

I seem to recall someone suggesting that power modifiers be switched to decimals in 6th edition, so that we can have more granularity than just "quarters". Oh, that's right; it was me. In this case the slightly-limited form of PI I'd call +0.2 and the "Doesn't work vs targets with LS: Cold about a -0.1. IOW, I think it does work out to a slight advantage, but less than half of a +1/4, so call it even at -0, especially considering that the character paid a few points for LS.

[jye42]

Re: PI or Not?

 

I wonder about a similar situation with change environment. My character has purchased a change environment to manipulate water/weather as part of it he can create a fog -2 perception, make it cold -2 temp chart and make the ground wet and slippery -1 dex rolls atm i have purchased.

 

Life support: Cold

Environmental Movment: Wet slippery ground

and 2 perception penalty levels only to offset poor visibility due to fog.

 

should i have purchased self immune instead or is change environment a different issue.

[Ice9]

Re: PI or Not?

 

Is this really different than Living Lightning (pretty much invulnerable to or even healed by electricity), taking a "Static Pulse" power (electric AoE, no range)? Or Steel Dreadnaught (very high PD), packing some frag bombs that don't do enough damage to hurt him? "No Range" does not necessarily mean "hurts yourself" - it can be applied to beneficial powers as well. Not being able to hit people at long range or avoid hitting your allies, like you could with a normal AoE EB, is penalty enough.