Elemental Controls

[dmjalund]

One advantage of Unified is that you can attach your Multipower to your list of powers linked by special effect

[Duke Bushido]

13 hours ago, Christougher said:

I've found that point savings of an EC were too much bang for the buck, and toyed with a few house rules from time to time.

 

Achilles Heel:  ECs require additional Disadvantages related to the EC's special effect, equal to the amount of the EC pool.  Ex: a Luck EC had the Psych Lim: Superstitious.  If you can't find a disadvantage that works, maybe it's not a good EC?

 

One Power: As the expression of a single power effect, all powers in the EC must either all cost END, or none of them can cost END - no mix and match. They must all turn on and off together, not individually.  Suit EC's need not apply unless the same SFX applies to all powers.  Repulsor Suit EC might have Flight and Blast, but the Armor isn't repulsor tech, so it can't be in the EC.  (Yes, you could put in a Force Field.)

 

Inverted Multipower: Reduce the EC pool amount to 1/5 the cost of the lowest power, and subtract that cost from the individual powers.

 

Minimum Investment:  An EC must have at least three powers.

 

 

 

This touched a memory.

 

Were you a first edition player, by any chance?

 

Because you almost nailed the first edition Elemental Control right there.

 

 

 

[archer]

Maybe I'm the odd man out. But I rarely write a character with an EC and rarely write a character without a MP.

[Duke Bushido]

Nah;

 

from what I understand, that's pretty typical, and has been since at least 4e.  I'm not sure why, given the generally-accepted "Elemental Control is such a massive give-away" line of thought.  Add in the "You should do everything you can to optimize your build" line of thought, and you'd think there'd be nothing but characters with most massive give-aways they can find.  And movements with odd-numbered inches.

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

The Shadow Powers EC is a good example.  All of those owers can be used at once as it has one conventional attack.

 

If you also wanted four other "standard attack" choices, you went with a MP.  90 points for that example 5 60 AP attack MP, and 38 points removed from the EC, so a net 52 cost.  Can't add 2 moe attacks to the EC for that.

 

I recall reading Multiple Power Attacks in 4e an thinking well, at least a reason to put attacks in an EC instead of a MP - but no, can't use two attacks from an EC in a MPA.  Why not? You paid a lot more for them!  Well, you paid less than buying them outside any framework.   So the EC saves too much, but only if it has extra attacks instead of extra defenses and utility powers?

 

of course, we also got the "any SFX is good enough" creep on ECs.

[Duke Bushido]

I have to wonder if 2e hadn't changed things if we'd even be having this discussion.  😕

 

The original 1e Elemental Control:

 

Create a Reserve (the listed example was 60 pts; we'll run with that for now).

 

Pick _three_ powers (mandatory) that operate at at 1/2 the reserve level (30 pts).  Note that since the text states that the AP doesn't have to be the same for the three powers, we are safe to assume that the whole thing is working with Real Cost (RP).  Powers can be modified individually; only Endurance modifiers can be applied to the Reserve (and they will affect all powers in the EC)

 

So you've got kind of a "buy two, get one free" sort of thing going on right off the bat.  I've got 90 pts of unmodified powers for 60 pts.  That's equivalent to a .... what?  -1/2 Limitation?

 

Let's do it with a Multipower:

 

Control Cost: 30

Power 1:  5 pts

Power 2: 5 pts

Power 3: 5 pts

 

For a total of 55 pts.

 

The difference?  If my END allows it, I can use all three EC powers at full STR; my MP is on a sliding scale (related digression:  suggesting that Multiform is more suitable for most of the late-model Adjustment Powers problems that were assigned to EC than EC actually is: MP appears to be based on the idea of one source of power that gets shifted and re-allocated than EC does.  However, that's one lunatic's opinion, and not a popular one).

 

I intentionally did not go with Ultras (which would re-value the MP at 33 pts vs the EC's 60) because you can't use "all the power" in all the powers....

 

_unless_ you've capped these powers lower than the Control allows, of course.  I think we can all agree that it's a bit foolish, at least early-on, because you end up with things like:

 

Control: 90

Ultra Power 1 capped at 30: 3

Ultra Power 2 capped at 30: 3

Ultra Power 2 capped at 30: 3

 

Obviously, it's just cheaper to buy the 90 points of Powers for 90 pts instead of 99.

 

But you can cap them at 40.  That still let's you use the MP, all three powers at once, even, and two at max; one at at 10 pts.  That costs you 102 points, but you're still only getting, at best, 90 pts worth of Powers in play.

 

 

It's when you start adding the other stuff into an MP-- remember the old "Movement Multipower?"

 

Control: 40

Flight Ultra: 4

Running Ultra: 4

Swimming Ultra: 4

 

You truly have no Limitation here (unless a player manages to sneak "lock out" past you, of course), since you're not going to fly and swim at the same time.  (Take a look at "useable as another form of movement" if you're one of the "I shout down Movement Multipowers every time I see them!" crowd.  They are alive and well, and are now an officially-endorsed Power Advantage.  Not a whole lot more expensive, either.)

 

Anyway, you have 120 pts of movement powers for 54 pts.  That's just the tiniest hair under a -1.5 Limitation.  Versus doing it with an EC, with its massive giveaway of the -1/2 Limitation value.

 

You might have seen Movement Multipowers back in the day, but you never saw a Movement Elemental Control from anyone who could do math.  Why is that?  Obviously, because Elemental Controls were the bomb for freebies.  Or, in this case, totally bombed at Movement.

 

There were two places where ECs _rocked_:  You had three really, really big powers (and lots of END)-- possibly even four, if you didn't want and skills, levels, or too many boosted Characteristics, _or_ you wanted a pile of little tiny parlor tricks.

 

Why?

 

Because the big "bonus" came after the third purchase.  Sure, the -1/2 for deciding to play a "theme" character was nice (and hey-- other than Superman fans, who doesn't like a Theme Character?.  You know what?  I liked the Sony Spiderman better than all other versions of Spiderman for one simple reason:  the webs were his own power.  It kept to the "Spider Powers" theme better than the mechanical web makers.  Yeah; they were on-theme, but it just felt more right.  Again: single lone lunatic.  Sue me for an opinion).

 

Anyway, after you bought the first three powers with the equivalent of a -1/2 Limitation for 2/3 their normal price, then you got into the good stuff:

 

Your fourth and subsequent powers were at 1/5 the cost!  _Massive_ discount, since today you'd either have to load up on Limitations (to the tune of -4, if you were wondering) _or_ do a book-legal Multiform.  You know:  Don't worry!  Captain Statsoveight will save you!   Using his power-- Instant Change, purchased with the rebate he got lowering his Characteristics by two points each (he spent the balance on a professional skill or two)-- Captain Statsoveight becomes the super-mighty Element Man, into which all his free points and his Disadplication profits were poured, and rushes off to save the day! 

 

This is even easier, now that the most expensive character doesn't have to be the full-price character.

 

Take that Element Man form, load it up with a Mutlipower or two, and you can really see why Elemental Control was so horrible.  It just reeks of points shaving and cost-cutting and powergaming and whatever else is so clearly unbalancing about it.

 

 

But to get back on track, you really didn't get a huge bonus for having an EC until your forth power (originally; remember that 2e simplified it a bit:  First Power was full price; all others were half-price.  It kept the stipulation that you had to pay the same points for each power, so even if you found a way to shave the cost further, you were obligated to buy more.  The end result is, particularly with the 1e version, you _either_ had a small selection of decent powers (smaller than you could fit in a Multipower, in most cases I remember) _or_ you had that terrifying container load of really useless special-circumstance power ("Boy, just _wait_ until that 2d6 Energy Blast is the perfect thing to save the day!").

 

What killed EC wasn't EC: it was the way the game has changed, particularly the "free" points going through the roof and the required Disadplications threshold getting lower and lower.  The fact that to build a seriously powerful one required a buttload of Disadvantages to buy is no longer an issue: _No one_ has to buy a buttload of Disadvantages any more.  No one has to _grow_ a character; they can buy it fully-formed and toss on three Disads to buy some skills and a car.

 

 

And one final thought, going to the "it was so unfair because they got that -1/2 on three whole powers just because they were playing a theme character; what a rip!" mindset:

 

The single, most wonderful thing about EC was _not_ that.  It was that they could use those three powers (or four, possibly five if they were homeless and unemployable) at full value, all the time (assuming END is covered).  _That_ was the wonderful thing.

 

The other "points saving for no real reason" option was Multipower.

 

Multipower and its endless sliding of weights and counterweights to keep a scale balanced.  Every other Phase, six people barking "I make adjustment x to my multipower!" and the GM keeping track of all of it, segment by segment, checking and rechecking to make sure no one screwed up or, if you had your own Davien, that no one was blatantly cheating....

 

You could turn a thirty-minute combat into an entire game session, easily.

 

I'd give Superman an EC bonus for his Super-ventriloquism if it made that crap stop.

 

Anyway, I'm not here to change anyone's mind (which is _good_!  We all know that only works on non-Americans anyway     ).  I've just kept schtum  during all the complaints for decades, and I had to get that off my chest.

 

Just remember that any "horror" you can do with Elemental Control can be done at least two other ways: you _cannot_ accept that "there is more than one way to do anything with HERO!" without accepting that, too.

 

 

Peace, my friends!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I let my players adjust their own multipower on the fly and most use them with all "Ultras" anyway, so its a choice between powers instead of sliding points around.  But yeah it could get pretty complicated in a way EC doesn't.

[massey]

I'll take characters with ECs and Multipowers any day of the week over letting an inexperienced player try his hand at a VPP.  Talk about slowing a game down to a crawl.

[Duke Bushido]

It's too late to edit my last post, as it's been seen at least twice now (I don't want anyone to think I'm playing that "I never said that!" game), so let me just post this here:

 

I made an error of omission (typing too fast):  Originally, for an EC, the cost of the forth and subsequent Power was not "1/5 the price," but was in fact 1/5 of the cost of the Reserve.

 

Thus, in keeping with the sixty-point reserve I used in the example, the cost of these subsequent powers would be one-fifth of that 60 pts (12 pts) and not 1/5 of the thirty points you'd pay for an unmodified power.  My mistake, but this means that effectively you were paying 2/5 the actual price.  Still a bargain; yes, but not quite the massive discount that EC _continues_ to be reported as.

 

 

I apologize to anyone who may have been misled by my error.

 

 

[unclevlad]

On 12/31/2020 at 4:30 PM, massey said:

I'll take characters with ECs and Multipowers any day of the week over letting an inexperienced player try his hand at a VPP.  Talk about slowing a game down to a crawl.

 

OK, but the only thing that'll slow it down even more is an experienced rules lawyer with one.

 

Because he'll be trying to squeeze out everything all the time....and he's got a lot more practice in how the system can be manipulated.  Especially when the pool size is greater than the control cost + limitations, required or expected.  IOW:  with more than 1 power up.

[archer]

On 12/31/2020 at 12:04 AM, archer said:

Maybe I'm the odd man out. But I rarely write a character with an EC and rarely write a character without a MP.

 

On 12/31/2020 at 5:53 AM, Duke Bushido said:

Nah;

 

from what I understand, that's pretty typical, and has been since at least 4e.  I'm not sure why, given the generally-accepted "Elemental Control is such a massive give-away" line of thought.  Add in the "You should do everything you can to optimize your build" line of thought, and you'd think there'd be nothing but characters with most massive give-aways they can find.  And movements with odd-numbered inches.

 

 

 

I think I started using MP's heavily mostly because ultras seemed to be a really easy way to not get new players overwhelmed with their characters and choices.

 

Tell the person they can use an offensive power out of their MP or they can do one of the "I'm gonna punch the bad guy" maneuvers off the list plus one of the non-offensive powers out of their MP. Most people can wrap their heads around that with very minimal knowledge of the system (which helps tremendously with people who aren't wanting to learn a roleplaying system but just want to play a game).

 

Give them an EC and they'll run themselves dry on END then be dissatisfied or they'll blow away the bad guy and not give the others a chance to play. Or they'll sit there and dither over their END choices and slow down the game.

[Duke Bushido]

I'm not doubting you.

 

I am, however, trying to get my head wrapped around why they have END issues with EC and not with MP.

 

A little help?

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

Probably because they toss the Blast and the Flash and the FF all in, and use them all together.  

[JmOz]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I'm not doubting you.

 

I am, however, trying to get my head wrapped around why they have END issues with EC and not with MP.

 

A little help?

 

 

 

 

The Key thing to remember is that with a Mulltipower you have one power, EC you have one special effect

 

With an EC I can activate a Force Field, Fly, and Energy Blast at full effect the whole day long (Back in the day probably about 10 end a phase)

 

If I have a MP I have the pool and as I weaken my blast to raise my flight, my end stays the same

 

Example: So let's say I have 100 points for powers

 

25 Light EC 

25 25/25 Force Field  (5)

25 25" Flight               (5)

25 10d6 EB                 (5)

Total END                   15

 

70  Light Manipulation MP

10m 25/25 Force Field  (5)

10m 25 25" Flight               (5)

10m 25 10d6 EB                 (5)

Total END                             7 (As no more than 70 Active Points can be used)

 

[Duke Bushido]

Well that makes sense, put that way.

 

My thought at the time was that using three powers at x amount is the same either way.  You know: a mutlipower that allowed Y points to be in use at any moment versus an EC character using an amount of powers that also totalled Y.

 

I coulsnt het my head around players nit being able to figure END expenditure for only one of these.

 

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

31 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well that makes sense, put that way.

 

My thought at the time was that using three powers at x amount is the same either way.  You know: a mutlipower that allowed Y points to be in use at any moment versus an EC character using an amount of powers that also totalled Y.

 

I coulsnt het my head around players nit being able to figure END expenditure for only one of these.

 

 

 

That's where the notion of "newbie" comes in.  Because nothing in that EC says you can't use Reduced END or even 0 END, at least in 5E.  I vaguely remember that *wasn't* the rule in earlier editions, or that, at least, it had to cost END.  But JmOz' EC could be rewritten as

 

25 -- EC

25 -- FF 20/20 (1/2 END)  (END=2)

25 -- Flight 20" (1/2 END) (END=2)

25 -- Blast 10d6 

 

And using everything together wouldn't be *too* bad.  And in this construction, the MP doesn't help;  the END cost when you need to blast is dropping only from 8 to 6, and that's assuming you don't have both the flight and FF active.

 

But the key is, this is rather a lot for someone just trying to learn.

[JmOz]

16 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

That's where the notion of "newbie" comes in.  Because nothing in that EC says you can't use Reduced END or even 0 END, at least in 5E.  I vaguely remember that *wasn't* the rule in earlier editions, or that, at least, it had to cost END.  But JmOz' EC could be rewritten as

 

25 -- EC

25 -- FF 20/20 (1/2 END)  (END=2)

25 -- Flight 20" (1/2 END) (END=2)

25 -- Blast 10d6 

 

And using everything together wouldn't be *too* bad.  And in this construction, the MP doesn't help;  the END cost when you need to blast is dropping only from 8 to 6, and that's assuming you don't have both the flight and FF active.

 

But the key is, this is rather a lot for someone just trying to learn.

 

You are of course correct, and it does make the math in the MP more varied, but the relative relationship remains (though reduced in severity) 

 

So the MP user is using between 3-6 end a phase (more EB, higher the END use) to 9 END on the EC.  We could, of course, buy all the powers down to 0 END, but there are some different balancers that go into play (having to do with MP reserces)

[unclevlad]

19 minutes ago, JmOz said:

 

You are of course correct, and it does make the math in the MP more varied, but the relative relationship remains (though reduced in severity) 

 

So the MP user is using between 3-6 end a phase (more EB, higher the END use) to 9 END on the EC.  We could, of course, buy all the powers down to 0 END, but there are some different balancers that go into play (having to do with MP reserces)

 

That's an incorrect comparison.  It's 6 or 7 (MP) versus 7-9 (EC)...because that's presuming the Blast *is* being used.  (I am willing to assume that when you're using Blast, your FF is up.  BUT, you might not be flying.)  When the blast isn't in use, it's probably 3 versus 3...the FF does not have to be used at full power when cruising around in flight mode.  Heck, you can have it at 17/17 and it's 1 END.  In the MP it might be 50 points in the flight and 20 in the FF...but it's gonna be 3 END.

 

BUT, that's getting into optimization.  Heck, the *sweet* EC would be 

 

21 -- EC

21 -- FF 17/17 1/2 END

21 -- Flight 17 1/2 END

29 -- Blast 10d6

 

That's 92 and it's 1 END each for the FF and flight.

 

But as noted, that's optimizing, and it's asking a fair bit for a newbie to look at that (and at *why* you want to do some of these)...and we haven't even talked about Limitations.

 

Another advantage of the MP construction is that it's faster and cheaper to slap in, let's say, a Flash.  And it tends to be simpler to explain.

 

 

 

 

[JmOz]

16 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

That's an incorrect comparison.  It's 6 or 7 (MP) versus 7-9 (EC)...because that's presuming the Blast *is* being used.  (I am willing to assume that when you're using Blast, your FF is up.  BUT, you might not be flying.)  When the blast isn't in use, it's probably 3 versus 3...the FF does not have to be used at full power when cruising around in flight mode.  Heck, you can have it at 17/17 and it's 1 END.  In the MP it might be 50 points in the flight and 20 in the FF...but it's gonna be 3 END.

 

BUT, that's getting into optimization.  Heck, the *sweet* EC would be 

 

21 -- EC

21 -- FF 17/17 1/2 END

21 -- Flight 17 1/2 END

29 -- Blast 10d6

 

That's 92 and it's 1 END each for the FF and flight.

 

But as noted, that's optimizing, and it's asking a fair bit for a newbie to look at that (and at *why* you want to do some of these)...and we haven't even talked about Limitations.

 

Another advantage of the MP construction is that it's faster and cheaper to slap in, let's say, a Flash.  And it tends to be simpler to explain.

 

 

 

 

The point I was making was why the EC cost more END.  

 

 

[archer]

Newbies don't tend to build things with Reduced END cost. And they tend to run all their powers full out because they don't understand END, REC, and how long battles sometimes last.

 

Heck, even if you build it for them with some things with Reduced END cost, they'll either still run everything full blast all the time or they'll sit starring and confused at their character sheet thinking that they ought to be doing something other than running everything at full power but not knowing what's OK to dial back a bit.

[Duke Bushido]

Being honest, guys:

 

I see what you are saying.  It's just not something I have seen people have any special trouble with.  I accept that I may have been very lucky, but most new player I have ever had the pleasure of twaching suss out Endurance management in just a session or two.

[archer]

14 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Being honest, guys:

 

I see what you are saying.  It's just not something I have seen people have any special trouble with.  I accept that I may have been very lucky, but most new player I have ever had the pleasure of twaching suss out Endurance management in just a session or two.

 

You've had better players than me. Getting to a second session with a player has been iffy if the experience isn't very smooth the first session.

 

Of course I've dealt almost exclusively with people who are in their first ever experience with an in-person RPG, who don't own a single RPG book, and who I haven't been able to convince to borrow and browse through one of mine before the first session.

 

But from what you've said, you're a much more experienced GM than I. You've not been in the game many more years than myself but I've always had large problems holding together a play group.

[Duke Bushido]

There's no doubt that keeping a group is the hardest thing about face-to-face gaming, and it becomes more difficult the older you get:  first there's "adult things" that start getting in the way-- work, overtime, rescheduling, marriage--

 

There there are spousal things; then there are childcare things, then you cruise along for a couple of years and then there are medical things....

 

 

Yeah; it's not easy.   I won't lie: mostly, I've just been very, very fortunate with my groups.

 

 

[unclevlad]

And I found I didn't like playing with less experienced players, or perhaps, the things I'd tolerate before got to be...too much.  A player running a thief who looks to be pickpocketing in the town...well, that's what a thief does, right?  And that's what chaotic neutral does, right?  ARRGH....

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I don't get to play these days, its just too exhausting and I don't have the strength for even online sessions, let alone the work of running a game.  So I don't get to playtest any new ideas I have like a slight restructure of the Spell System, or new adventures I build.