Meta Effect

[Sean Waters]

I was thinking about suffocation and stunning and bleeding and such. These are Hero System meta effects: they are consequences outside the simple mechanics of combat that have additional effects, and the only way to achieve them is to either build something really complicated (see previous discussions on suffocation) or do whatever the rules require to achieve the effect.

 

The Advanced Player’s Guide (p83) has rules for adding suffocation and stunning to Change Environment, which is, frankly, groovy.

 

What I am thinking though is that it might be nice to have such things as general adders that can be applied to any attack. There are also other meta-effects like disabling and impairing (and bleeding mentioned above), and even things like blindness (although there are already plenty of ways of doing that) that could benefit from this treatment: it might be quite interesting to be able to inflict an bleeding wound on a superhero in a genre where that optional rule is not usually used.

 

So:

1. Would this be a useful development?

2. What other meta-effects have I missed?

3. Any thoughts on cost and balance issues?

[Christopher]

Re: Meta Effect

 

What I am thinking though is that it might be nice to have such things as general adders that can be applied to any attack. There are also other meta-effects like disabling and impairing (and bleeding mentioned above)' date=' and even things like blindness (although there are already plenty of ways of doing that) that could benefit from this treatment: it might be quite interesting to be able to inflict an bleeding wound on a superhero in a genre where that optional rule is not usually used.[/font']

That would be totally unfair. If the games doesn't uses a rule, the attacker should have to go through the entire work to built it. Bleeding should be a Continous, 0 END/Damage over Time Effect if the games does not uses Bleeding rule.

 

As for Disablign and Imparing, the Hero System Martial Arts page 95 introduces the "Disabling" Maneuver element for Martial Arts. It has the advantage that hit location rules don't apply and your damage "adds up" towards the treshold (so it's better against limbs).

[Ice9]

Re: Meta Effect

 

Seems like whether it was unfair would depend on the cost. In the Bleeding example, since it could be built normally, it should be fairly straightforward to give it the same cost as an adder / power / whatever.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Meta Effect

 

Bleeding is a good example of an effect that could be built using Hero rules (although it would be tricky to get it exactly right, as 'meta-effect' bleeding can get worse). Similarly, you COULD build suffocation as a power, BUT again there are parts of it that are VERY difficult to mimic (such as the complete loss of recoveries and the requirement that you burn at least 1 END per phase)

 

The thing is that although suffocation is an expensive power to build (try it and see) it will probably only have much effect on long combats where the lack of REC begins to show.

 

Ideally I would LIKE the rules of Hero to be BUILT using Hero, rather than be arbitrary (so it would be nice to see a build for 'Stunning', even if that involved creating an arbitrary value for the 'stunning' component of an attack)

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Meta Effect

 

This might sound funny and I might be forgetting something but is there an easy way to make a power knock someone over without just cranking up the KB? Several Martial Manuevers have the Target Falls element including a few that aren't trips or throws (like Takedown) but I can' think of an easy way to incorporate such a thing into a Power build. It would be nice to be able to for times when building martial arts as powers and such.

[Christopher]

Re: Meta Effect

 

This might sound funny and I might be forgetting something but is there an easy way to make a power knock someone over without just cranking up the KB? Several Martial Manuevers have the Target Falls element including a few that aren't trips or throws (like Takedown) but I can' think of an easy way to incorporate such a thing into a Power build. It would be nice to be able to for times when building martial arts as powers and such.

APG II 46 has "Irresistable Knockback" wich could also be used for "Irresistable Knockdown".

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Meta Effect

 

*sigh* I really need to get that second APG...