fair cost for strength that isn't strong

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

Axiomatic to MA study is that a major part of it is learning to know yourself very well and then using that knowledge to control yourself to a high degree. (A "true" MA will apply this principle to both physical and non physical traits. Not all MA do.)

 

I use MA in the context of "a character who relies on Martial Arts combat maneuvers for his combat effectiveness". That may be a true student of martial arts. It could be Captain America or Batman. It could be a dirty infighting berserker. There are many valid SFX for the exact same abilities.

 

If STR 10 Charles Fort origins into the STR 50 Brick Fortress, he's just become 256x stronger. Usually in less time than it ordinarily takes for him to drink a cup of coffee (heck, maybe drinking the coffee =was= the origin!).

 

Realistically, there is NO WAY Fortress going to be able to use the MA he used to know in a controllable or predictable manner without extrensive retraining. Heck, he's going to have trouble doing ordinary life tasks w/o disasters taking place until he's gotten used to his new found STR.

 

Realistically, there's no way a human being gets a STR of 50. Exerting that kind of force would break our fragile bones. [Rabbits can kick hard enough to break their own spines...]. Supers isn't exactly a genre that's all about realism. If I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept that Charles drinks a cup of coffee and becomes super-strong, joins teammates who can fly, read minds and project energy of various types from their bodies, bounce bullets off their chests, dodge laser beams, etc., then allowing Charles to quickly master his newfound strength really doesn't feel like a big stretch.

 

Colossus did not become a circus capable acrobat. He learned some =basic= falling and tumbling techniques.

 

If he spends 3 points, he gets a base DEX roll. Hero granularity isn't all that substantial in these areas.

 

Tony Stark learned =basic MA= from Cap =specifically= for when he was =not= Iron Man.

 

Cap insisted. And he's pretty good, though I expect Hawkeye, much less Cap, would clean his clock.

 

In game terms' date=' neither Colossus nor Tony spent nearly enough time at anywhere near the level of commitment needed to give them serious abilities in these areas. Such stuff takes intense, regular training over a period of months and years. And even after you get it, you have to maintain it or you will lose it.[/quote']

 

Try being an expert chemist, physicist and biologist with two dozen sub-specialties. Impossible in the real world. Par for the course in a Supers game, among other adventure fiction genres.

 

Picking up a few techniques to round yourself out is =not= the same as becoming an acrobat or a MA.

 

And yet, with your STR adds, a 60 STR Brick spending 10 - 20 points on MA can match the damage done by a 20 STR MA with what, 8 damage classes? Seems to me he became a pretty capable martial artist.

 

If it takes 1% of your maximum STR to do something' date=' it'll be easy to learn to do it precisely and correctly. If it takes 1/25600 or even less of your maxmium STR, your margin of error is very, very small. Doing something in a controlled and precise manner will be correspondingly more difficult.[/quote']

 

I'm curious what % of STR it takes to fix watches, fit pipes or type. Some people are better at these feats than others, and it has nothing to do with strength.

 

The in-game balance on this is that obviously punching holes through people puts you in a whole different catagory of "Bad" than just mixing it up every now and then. Even causing $millions in property damage is not going to p*ss people off as much as having a Rep for being a Casual Killer.

 

Realistically, a lot of people like the idea of vigilante justice. I suspect a Super who kills terrorists and superterrorists would get a pretty easy ride here in the real world.

 

Supers who act like villains or commit illegal acts get stopped. Supers who are Casual Killers make many more' date=' much more ardent, enemies. Casual Killers are themselves =killed= ASAP. Using any means necessary.[/quote']

 

Doesn't that mean their killers are similarly viewed?

 

...and create other problems that my play group' date=' which includes real MA, occasionally find too inconsistent or too illogical to ignore.[/quote']

 

But they're OK with superstrong characters who can't lift weights (without getting into the other unrealities of Supers). Very selective realism concerns they have.

 

Such over-simplification or inconsistent game mechanics to protect game balance because the underlying mechanics are broken is one reason why many of us who used to play games like DnD stopped and went looking for a better RPG system.

*********************************************************

But character concept and game balance are going to trump everything else.

 

One of these is not like the others.

 

Any real MA will tell you that studying a MA to the degree needed to get the benefits we model in HERO as MA skills' date=' MA maneuvers, let alone MA +DC classes, requires regular, ongoing, and nontrivial commitment.[/quote']

 

A real world professional will tell you the time it takes to earn enough xp to buy a 15- roll isn't long enough to meet the starting requirements in their chosen profession , much less be a master of it.

 

2= evidence how you will play balance a 60 STR EP in campaigns set at various CP levels. This may be ridiculously easy in a 1000 CP game' date=' but can it be done for the default CP level HERO assumes? How small a CP budget can you still prove the concept is validly play balanced? Etc.[/quote']

 

60 STR is a lot less useful to a guy with a suite of ranged powers. So I can punch for 12d6 and throw a car at the bad guy? Why bother, when I can Blast him at short range or long range with my 12d6 Blast?

 

EDIT: corrected typo below

In most games with a 12 DC cap, an EP with 60 STR would at first blush appear to be a real threat to other characters roles and schticks.

 

I suspect the Brick will define himself by more than a 60 STR. In some games, a Martial Artist with a passel of "STR not to lift" so he can have Figured's like the Brick may well step on the Brick's toes as well.

 

Clearly, they can have very different things they are good at. One might be faster. One might be tougher. One might be very accurate. One might dish out enormous amounts of damage. etc.

 

But each of them should be ~ equivalent to their peers in "combat CP spent" in how long they can survive and how effective they can be while fighting.

 

I find most are more effective in some situations than others. Some excel at battling hordes of agents who frustrate others geared for one on one combat. Some are support combatants more than front liners (I have a character who focuses on Flash and Drain abilities - he rarely attacks the same target twice in a row, preferring to set them up for his teammates). Occupying different niches, and facing a variety of challenges, makes it work in my games, not having everyone be equally effective at all times.

 

I have already repeatedly said I agree. But if the team's best brick is also the team's best MA' date=' that kind of leaves the team's MA "out in the cold".[/quote']

 

So maybe brute strength should not enhance all the abilities of martial artists and martial artists should work with less figured characteristics. How many times have we gone around in this circle?

[Trebuchet]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

Clearly, they can have very different things they are good at. One might be faster. One might be tougher. One might be very accurate. One might dish out enormous amounts of damage. etc.

 

But each of them should be ~ equivalent to their peers in "combat CP spent" in how long they can survive and how effective they can be while fighting.

Define "long." Is it number of Segments? Number of Phases? Number of Phases they take offensive actions? Is a Phase where they take a defensive action subtracted?

 

Define "effective." Is it the number of hits they take to take down a normal? To take down a martial artist? To take down a brick? To punch their way out of a wet paper bag? Do Recoveries change these numbers? Are they considered effective if they solve the mystery but can't take down the bad guy? Are they effective if they only helped take down the bad guy?

 

Define "survive"...

 

 

My point is that these are entirely subjective concepts. Player A's idea of success may be totally different from Player B's. One player may be happiest running a supporting character who is not as effective in combat by design. Others may prefer to run a concept that is less effective in combat because they feel it enhances the role-playing experience to think their way through problems instead of powering through them.

[phookz]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

If STR 10 Charles Fort origins into the STR 50 Brick Fortress, he's just become 256x stronger. Usually in less time than it ordinarily takes for him to drink a cup of coffee (heck, maybe drinking the coffee =was= the origin!).

 

Realistically, there is NO WAY Fortress going to be able to use the MA he used to know in a controllable or predictable manner without extrensive retraining.

Heck, he's going to have trouble doing ordinary life tasks w/o disasters taking place until he's gotten used to his new found STR.

 

...

 

If it takes 1% of your maximum STR to do something, it'll be easy to learn to do it precisely and correctly. If it takes 1/25600 or even less of your maxmium STR, your margin of error is very, very small. Doing something in a controlled and precise manner will be correspondingly more difficult.

 

Using that same logic, one would expect olympic body builders to have difficulty with fragile things like styrofoam cups, but I'm not aware of any documented evidence of this. There is nothing to suggest that the human body (or non-human, since we're talking supers and all of their potential origins) is not capable of fine grained control of it's muscle movement. Not to mention this doesn't fit the genre. And who's to say that the power's origin didn't also impart amazing control over the use of the STR? This kind of logic has no place being in the rules.

 

Some compromises are forced upon us by issues of playability or game balance. That does not mean we should just ignore opportunities to improve the system so we can reduce the need for those compromises.

 

The key word here being "improve", which I think is fairly subjective. I think the RAW do fine for the type of game simulation HERO is trying to represent. Since nobody has ever met someone with a 50 STR, it's all conjecture as to what would happen at those levels anyways, or even levels much lower.

 

You mentioned earlier that too much STR gets in the way of martial arts; choke holds pop heads off. This might be true for normals, but against supers this is an arguable point at best. But the maneuvers don't take into consideration the target's limits, and I don't think they should. That sounds like a much more complicated game than I (and I suspect a lot of others) would be willing to play.

[prestidigitator]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

You mentioned earlier that too much STR gets in the way of martial arts; choke holds pop heads off. This might be true for normals' date=' but against supers this is an arguable point at best. But the maneuvers don't take into consideration the target's limits, and I don't think they should. That sounds like a much more complicated game than I (and I suspect a lot of others) would be willing to play.[/quote']

 

Yeah. I think if a GM really wants to go that way, house rules and on-the-spot judgement calls are definitely the way to go. Some concepts, Complications, genres, or situtations might be worth a "don't know your own strength"/"see if you manage to control yourself enough not to...," but it shouldn't be the norm.

[Phil]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

You mentioned earlier that too much STR gets in the way of martial arts; choke holds pop heads off.

 

As others have pointed out, comic book super-strength doesn't function was strength perhaps would function in the real world. However, I do think there is place in future revision of Dark Champions or Champions Iron Age to consider some of the possible implications of such tremendous power. I can certainly see house rules that strength above a certain level must purchase a linked HKA.

 

Of course, neatly tying this back to the thread (which I tried to leave, but which keeps drawing me back in!) is that you'd model this effect using a linked power, within the costed rules. You wouldn't just add free benefits to an existing attribute or ability.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

Using that same logic, one would expect olympic body builders to have difficulty with fragile things like styrofoam cups, but I'm not aware of any documented evidence of this.

 

Well not to throw gas a a fire but some 20 odd years ago I read a article about a strength trainer and I believed he just focused on his hands. And I do remeber that he said that he would crush door knobs until he learned how to handle them better.

 

But on the other hand, just because you would have difficulty of handling light things wouldn't stop you from using max damage. If you know how to punch before the accident, You'll know how to after. Of course it all depends on Sfx, like turning into a rock thing.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

Bueller?

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: fair cost for strength that isn't strong

 

I always like the way in Star wars 2 ed (WEG) on how they limited damage and to hit by scale. What they did was put a cap on the d6. How it worked was if you were on the same scale then you get the full value of the d6. If you thried to damage something in the next class then the d6 would be limited to 5. So even if you roled a 6, you only got the value of the 5. And theis went on for several levels. I wonder how to implement something like this for Hero. Say norm str vs super str. For argument norm and super have same str of 20. Declare that any six by normal is considered only 1 body whereas the super rolls per rules? Any thoughts?