What is a MP and what is not ?

[IKerensky]

Hello,

 

I found the notion of MP very confusing, except for the VFPP. Here are 3 example :

 

1- A Hero with Energy control he could use to Fly, Throw different energy blast and use as a Damage Shield. The rules use this as an example of a MP.

 

2- A Hero Gadgeter that use a Modified PickAxe, he could use it to attack with, at melee or throwing, to tunnel through earth and to raise dirt-walls (as cover more than protection). Even if this is a OAF this is still a MP, right ?

 

3- The same Hero use an Harness that give him extra-strength, a resistant protection, life support(breath) and have a radio and sonar integrated. This is a OIF but this is not a MP. ..

 

I am starting to really wonder about the whole MP thing. The more I think about it the more it look like a way to lessen cost for no real good argument (except the gadgeteer tool belt of course). After all you can pretty put every Attack power into a MP : Attack Power Pool and be rules compliant.

 

As some have already asked, aren't MP attaques better described as a lone power with large Variable Advantage ?

 

Aren't MP just construct that exist because of points limitation and campaign setting limits on Active Points ?

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

If you have powers that can only work one at a time, or can not work at full power if another power is working, you may have a MP or a VPP. However, you do not have to use a framework to get that effect.

 

1 and 2 could be built as a MP. 3 not, if he has access to all powers simultaneously.

 

Whether MP is the right build to create exactly what you want is another issue. For instance if the first character has a set amount of energy and has to allocate it to flight, blast OR protection, but can not have all running at full steam, it is fine to do that as a MP, although I've always thought such a MP particularly difficult to use in a character that is actually effective.

 

There is no connection whatsoever between 'focus' and 'framework'.

[tesuji]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

 

As some have already asked, aren't MP attaques better described as a lone power with large Variable Advantage ?

 

Aren't MP just construct that exist because of points limitation and campaign setting limits on Active Points ?

 

A MP exists to answer the following issue.

 

FIREGUY has the ability to throw three different attacks using his massive firepower - a blast 12d6 eb fire, a hotter, narrower bolt 4d6 rka, OR an even wider stream 6d6 cone fire. he can throw any one of these attacks at any one time but cannot do all three at once. These are all separated by OR. Choose one. (I tend to think of them as different flavors of his basic 60 pt fire attack.)

 

he pays X for those three attacks.

 

Now this other fire type, firestorm, has the same three attack but he can throw them all at once. he can throw a 12d6 fire eb AND the 4d6 fire rka at the same time at the same target. He might even be able to throw the fire cone too, but i have to look up whether you can use combi9ned attack to throw aoe and single target.

 

He pays Y for this ability.

 

BY THE BOOK y is 180 pts, full price 60 pts for each of the powers. Thats what firestorm pays for the ability to throw all three 60 pt attacks at once or singly or in pairs as he chooses.

 

Now it seems very obvious that fireguy should pay less than that because he is limited to only one at a time, right? he should not pay 180 like firestorm because he is only able to use 1/3 as much at any time, 60 vs 180.

 

So thats whwere the mp comes in.

 

He lumps the three into a 60 pt pool mp paying 60 plus 18 (6 each for three fixed slots) and so he pays 78.

 

Fire guy pays 78 for three 60 pt attacks one at a time and firestorm pays 180 for three 60 pt attacks at the same time.

 

that feels right to me.

 

in practice mp work great when used this way. They let a character like a fireguy have several different flavors of attacks or a vrick to have severla different "strength tricks, for a reasonable cost since its not adding MORE POWER but adding DIFFERENT POWERS along the same lines.

 

Where i think Mp start to have problems and need gm policing (and this is echoed to a degree in a cautionary column in 6e1) ios when you start throwing diverse powers into the pool - to 6e1 they caution about lots of non-combat powers - i caution more precisely about allowing powers in the pool that are never going to be used together anyway.

 

For example - a mp with a 12d6 eb, a 20/20 force field and 60m flight would be fine under either my or 6e1 standards since in combat you want all three of these and so you are forcing the guy to choose between them - he suffers a drawback in exchange for the cost savings.

 

But add in say a slot for clairvoyance and a slot for mind scan and a slot for megascale teleport and you start to run into trouble because these are usually non-combat powers and also unlikely to ever be needed at the same time... so they may start to amount to free savings for no real drawback.

 

I am myself going to take the 6e1 advice and pay particluar attention to mp and police them fairly tightly. I will likely be reducing them to a narrow "different flavors of a given power" type of restriction.

 

but i would not consider eliminating them. To do so will drive - thru economics of a point driven game- everyone towrds one power one attack characters.

 

Were i to consider dropping mp seriously, i would also look at empowering the POWER SKILL - so that with a minor investment in that skill a character with ONE FIRE POWER - say 12d6 eb - he could then use the power skill to create altered effects such as the cone or the rka.

 

Many comic character do seem to have one power but several ways to use it... and the mp or the power skill provide methods for making such much more accurate in cost to just buying them all separate.

[Fearghus]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

Yeah I think you have the hang of it. of the powers you mentioned Life support and enhanced senses are the only ones that that shouldn't be placed in a multi-power because they are special powers and so should not be in an MP without GM permission. I also always caution players about putting defenses in an MP since it would suck to make a great attack, but be left vulnerable until your next phase. But what you described seems reasonably since you placed the special powers and your defense on a focus not in your Multi-power

 

The key to understanding multi-power is thinking of them as the SAME POWER. Think of the slots as different ways of using the same power. As a drawback the multi-power gets suppressed or drained as one power. So FIRESTORM from above could suffer a drain attack and still have two powers to fall back on, but FIREGUY could be drained and be out of luck.

[Naanomi]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

I also always caution players about putting defenses in an MP since it would suck to make a great attack' date=' but be left vulnerable until your next phase. [/quote']

 

A MP of defenses works pretty well though... say someone with a ghostly body and has an MP of 'Invisible', 'desolid', 'Resistant Defenses', and maybe 'Flight' in there... choice of defense style.

[Wolf]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

A great example is also the rifle with a selective fire switch.

slot a) one round of damage, slot autofire. This can also be accomplished with naked advantages, so it might be a bad example.

 

I used MP to mimic a Gambit like character. I built the MP, "energized clay disk throwing" put much of the limiters on there, and built the slots from there.

"explosion disk"- explosive

"basic disk"- all points put to damage

"Armor Piercing disk"- AP

"3 disk spread"- Autofire

etc.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

... As a drawback the multi-power gets suppressed or drained as one power. So FIRESTORM from above could suffer a drain attack and still have two powers to fall back on' date=' but FIREGUY could be drained and be out of luck.[/quote']

 

No.

 

From 5er, page 109:

Negatively Adjusting Power Frameworks

If a character uses Adjustment Powers such as Drain to reduce or decrease a Power Framework, he must reduce the individual slots rather than the base pool of points. Reducing the base pool of points doesn’t aff ect the individual slots unless the slots are also reduced. (Elemental Controls are an exception; see page 314-15.) Furthermore, the Drain (or like Power) affects the slot’s Active Points, not the Real Cost of the slot. For example, suppose a character has a Multipower with a reserve of 70 points and a slot with an Energy Blast 14d6 (which costs 7 Character Points). If an attacker uses a Drain Energy Blast to remove 10 points’ worth of power from the EB, it becomes an EB 12d6 (60 points’ worth of EB) — the fact that the slot costs less than 10 points doesn’t matter, since the Drain applies to the slot’s Active Points, not its actual cost.

 

If a character uses an Adjustment Power to reduce, decrease, or diminish a slot or power in a Multipower or VPP, doing so does not affect the reserve/Pool or otherwise restrict the target’s ability to switch to or use other slots or powers. For example, suppose Avatar has a Multipower with a 60-point reserve and fi ve slots (all Fixed slots with 60 Active Points, thus costing 6 points apiece). An enemy Drains one slot to 0 points. That means Avatar can’t use that slot, but he can still use the other four slots freely — the Drain of the one slot doesn’t affect the reserve. (Elemental Controls work differently; see page 314-15.)

[torchwolf]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

...As a drawback the multi-power gets suppressed or drained as one power. So FIRESTORM from above could suffer a drain attack and still have two powers to fall back on' date=' but FIREGUY could be drained and be out of luck.[/quote']

 

What Hyper-Man cited above, but in 6E you can apply Unified Power to the MP and/or it's slots to make it function that way.

 

Aside: One of my pet peeves has always been some published characters' MP slots not listing their Active Points, making recalculations necessary (even if that is quickly done, it's annoying). Same goes for ECs.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

Sometimes a Multipower with an array of fixed/ultra slots just represents that the character can do one action from the list at a time. I believe that Armadillo is a primary example of this.

[torchwolf]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

Sometimes a Multipower with an array of fixed/ultra slots just represents that the character can do one action from the list at a time. I believe that Armadillo is a primary example of this.

 

Yeah, I think it's just a slight specific OCD I acquired sometime during the 2nd/3rd supplements where this was not necessarily true. My brain automatically activates "Paranoid Point-Defense Mode" and recalculates.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

The effectiveness of a Multipower is definitely tied to what scope of powers that are allowed in it. And limiting that scope is not necessarily worth points as an official Limitation.

 

Take a look at the Multipowers from these 3 examples:

 

Superman

Martian Manhunter

Flash

 

All 3 are built with the basic premise that no power uses more than 1/2 of the pool reserve. This means they can use 2 abilities together as long as they aren't both 'attack' powers (due to the rule against using MPA's for powers within a single framework). All 3 have several powers in common and are built on nearly the same points (Flash's has less limitations than Superman's and Manhunter's is built on slightly higher active points). All 3 are arguably the most powerful depending on what arena is being used to define them (Superman is the best pure brick, Flash is the best speedster, Manhunter is the best 'jack of all trades'). Manhunter seems to take advantage of the multipower framework the most but this is balanced by the fact that his powers get shut down by one of the most simple things: flame. The point is that the characters are balanced because of what powers were allowed (and disallowed) in their frameworks as much as any HERO mechanics.

 

Edit

All were built with 'Unified Power' by another name before 6th edition came out.

[Utech]

Re: What is a MP and what is not ?

 

Multipower works very well for characters who have a limited amount of raw power available to them and must make choices as to how that power expresses itself. A simple version of this is the telekinetic who can use his telekinesis to protect himself (FF or FW) or use it to attack (EB, TK, or RKA). Some players would love making tactical decisions about how to allocate that raw telekinetic power, some not so much.