Would you allow this?

[esampson]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I would still have allowed the character. I just would have said no when he asked to purchase autofire.

[massey]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

In the end that's still just 18 Stun or so per shot. Not too bad. He'll never Stun anybody, and he's in trouble if he runs into someone with the NND defense or a simple automaton that doesn't take Stun at all. He'll have a hard time getting out of Entangles as well. 12 Speed is fast, but I don't think the character as a whole sounds too bad. The only thing about 12 Speed is it's boring for the rest of the group, especially if the player doesn't think very fast. "So Bob, what do you do?" "....Umm.... I guess I.... (crickets chirp) ...I umm... (Jeopardy music) ...lemme look at my sheet."

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I would still have allowed the character. I just would have said no when he asked to purchase autofire.

 

This is kind of the issue with allowing the unbalanced one-really-BIG-trick-pony ... they get experience points, which you then have to monitor closely. If Mr. Indestructible starts buying offense with his points ... Martial Arts, gadgetry, maybe his powers evolve and he's getting the Strength that usually goes with that level of invulnerability ... how much do you allow? How much is too much?

[esampson]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

In the end that's still just 18 Stun or so per shot. Not too bad. He'll never Stun anybody' date=' and he's in trouble if he runs into someone with the NND defense or a simple automaton that doesn't take Stun at all. . .[/quote']

Yeah, but unfortunately if he runs into someone he can affect he can do over 200 points of stun in a turn (assuming his OCV is high enough). When everyone else is in the range of 70-90 that's a pretty big problem. Sure, I could just equip everyone with the defense to his power but as a GM I find myself in the position of either letting him run amok or completely neutralizing him. There's not a whole lot of middle ground in his case.

 

But yeah, like I said earlier an even bigger problem, IMO (since I always do have the option of neutralizing him), is that he can seriously decrease the enjoyment of the other players since they might have to wait so long for him to take all his actions.

[esampson]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

This is kind of the issue with allowing the unbalanced one-really-BIG-trick-pony ... they get experience points' date=' which you then have to monitor closely. If Mr. Indestructible starts buying offense with his points ... Martial Arts, gadgetry, maybe his powers evolve and he's getting the Strength that usually goes with that level of invulnerability ... how much do you allow? How much is too much?[/quote']

That's really just the same problem you have when the character is very first created. Someone wants to make a character who is completely invulnerable but without any attack ability. Is that ok? How about if they have a weak attack ability? 4-6 dice? What about 8 dice but their OCV isn't very good so it doesn't land that often? What about 12 dice that can land reliably but they can only use it once in a fight? How about 10 dice that I can land fairly reliably but I have a slow speed if I drop those super high defenses down to merely very high?

 

In the end as the GM I have to look over the entire character and simply make a decision as to whether I'm going to allow it or not. Some people use caps as a way of helping them make that decision, some people use other methods. I'm personally not a huge fan of caps since I've seen to many examples of characters who can break things while remaining within whatever caps are written, but going by 'gut' is often a lot harder (and more likely to miss something).

[Bloodstone]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

This is kind of the issue with allowing the unbalanced one-really-BIG-trick-pony ... they get experience points' date=' which you then have to monitor closely. If Mr. Indestructible starts buying offense with his points ... Martial Arts, gadgetry, maybe his powers evolve and he's getting the Strength that usually goes with that level of invulnerability ... how much do you allow? How much is too much?[/quote']

 

Points is points. Even if something starts off totally balanced, it can grow into a broken mess with time and XP.

 

Characters evolve in all kinds of crazy ways. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Like right now, Cyclops has the Phoenix Force and all the rediculous cosmic Psi powers that go with it

 

GM supervision is always required. Shtick pretection should be enforced by group effort. And concept is king...

[dmjalund]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

He'd probably end up being the 'Worf' of the party, being one-shotted by the bad guy to show what a bad-ass he is.

[psyber624]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

The one thing I like about caps is that it gives your players an "idea" of what to expect and how to build their characters. No, it doesn't mean you can auto-approve their character if he/she/it falls under the caps, but at least it gives them some guidelines to go by. THEN you can start from their and hopefully weed out the rest of the bad stuff that can creep in even with caps.

 

Especially with how much is "relative" in hero. Spd 3 is great in a campaign where that is the average, but lousy if the average is 6. OCV/DCV of 8 is just fine if that is average, but if the average tends to be around 12 your not going to hit anything, and you will almost always BE hit. If you tell your players the OCV cap is 12, you do have problems that suddenly everyone of your players is likely to have a 12 OCV (in some form or another), but if you don't, then suddenly you have players with way to low OCV (who never wind up hitting) or way to high (because there is little difference between OCV 12 and OCV 16 if most opponents are DCV 8) because they didnt know where you were aiming at. Personally I prefer to tell players the average, AND the cap, and limit how many things can be capped. But that's just my way

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

Often, the problem with caps is that the maximum quickly also becomes the minimum. A combination approach providing ranges (so we don't end up with CV's of 6 - 18), and the requirement that being above the midpoint on one range requires being below the midpoint somewhere else is a happy medium, at least IMO. So maybe we tell the players CV should range from 8 - 12, damage from 10 - 14 DC's, SPD from 5 - 7, and defenses from 20 - 30 (with about half to 2/3 resistant). You want a 12 OCV? Then you balance that out with a 5 SPD, or 10 DC's. Maybe you have a 12 OCV, 14 DC's and 6 SPD, but DCV 8 and 20 defenses (ie you are a glass cannon).

 

I find it better to review the character overall (maybe a bit more power is OK if the character has less versatility, high normal defenses can be mitigated by a lack of exotic defenses, or movement deficiencies can offset other advantages, or what have you), but I'm still looking for a balance of strengths and weaknesses. If you don't want any weak/below average areas, then you don't get any strong/above average areas.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

Often, the problem with caps is that the maximum quickly also becomes the minimum. A combination approach providing ranges (so we don't end up with CV's of 6 - 18), and the requirement that being above the midpoint on one range requires being below the midpoint somewhere else is a happy medium, at least IMO. So maybe we tell the players CV should range from 8 - 12, damage from 10 - 14 DC's, SPD from 5 - 7, and defenses from 20 - 30 (with about half to 2/3 resistant). You want a 12 OCV? Then you balance that out with a 5 SPD, or 10 DC's. Maybe you have a 12 OCV, 14 DC's and 6 SPD, but DCV 8 and 20 defenses (ie you are a glass cannon).

 

I find it better to review the character overall (maybe a bit more power is OK if the character has less versatility, high normal defenses can be mitigated by a lack of exotic defenses, or movement deficiencies can offset other advantages, or what have you), but I'm still looking for a balance of strengths and weaknesses. If you don't want any weak/below average areas, then you don't get any strong/above average areas.

 

Pretty much how we run it. No one hit's all the caps, a couple will hit two caps and the true speciailssts can generally excede the cap in a single area.

 

[arr] The caps is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules! [/arr]

[Tech]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I wouldn't allow it. It's not because of the defenses but you, as GM, will easily find ways around the character. The player then gets bored. It's an idea waiting to become boring - it's begging to eventually get replaced by a different character.

 

Btw, Bolo, my campaign does have someone with a 10 SPD, 2.5d6 AVLD attack. Despite my initial reservations, the character works. Still, with something like this, it's how the player actually uses the character that can make or break a character.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

Whether or not I allowed this would depend both on the character concept and the type of campaign it was.

 

What in the background of this character makes him indestructible? This is important in part because it helps define the character initially, but also because it defines where he can go from here. As Crosshaircollie pointed out, with enough XP your indestructible character could become very dangerous in combat. If he is indestructible because he is an blacksteel golem, then he isn't likely to expand his power set much. If he is indestructible because of an impentratable mental shield, well you can see branching out in all sorts of directions from there. Keep in mind too that almost anyone can reasonably learn Martial Arts or buy combat equipment (although he might make a good team player in combat with a Legsweep or similar manuever even if he couldn't actually hurt anyone directly).

 

Also, what is the campaign like? If you have lots of combat, Mr. Invulnerable is going to get bored quickly. If he is frequently able to use his powers to rescue people from burning buildings or push them out of the way of an oncoming bus only to get hit himself, or help break into the villain's headquarters by setting off all the deadly traps then he will be a lot more fun. Look at how they handled Claire in the Heroes TV show. She couldn't go toe-to-toe with much of anybody, but she was still a compelling character (albeit a bit angsty; seriously, who is going to get that worked up that they are indestructible?).

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

Heh. I recall thinking "what's the big deal? All your classmates already act like they're unkillable too; you're just klutzy/unlucky enough to have discovered it's literally true in your case."

[Greywind]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I wouldn't allow it. It's not because of the defenses but you' date=' as GM, will easily find ways around the character. The player then gets bored. It's an idea waiting to become boring - it's begging to eventually get replaced by a different character.[/quote']Then let it. Why do players only get one character anyways? At one point I was running three different groups of characters with the same players.

[Balabanto]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I did allow this. Mr. Invulnerable was one of our favorites. He couldn't damage anything, but he was fun to play with. Basically, he aborted and interposed a lot, and there were times when it helped, and times when it hurt, like the time he failed a dex roll doing something he wasn't supposed to, and rescued a cat from a tree, destroying a little old lady's house in the process. He had 15 in defenses, 3/4 damage reduction, and 2 body regen, some science skills, and comic book martial arts that threw 8d6. He had disads like overconfidence and"believes he can take any hit."

 

Ultimately, this led to Mr. I getting used as a weapon far more often than attacking on his own. Oh, well.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

I did allow this. Mr. Invulnerable was one of our favorites. He couldn't damage anything, but he was fun to play with. Basically, he aborted and interposed a lot, and there were times when it helped, and times when it hurt, like the time he failed a dex roll doing something he wasn't supposed to, and rescued a cat from a tree, destroying a little old lady's house in the process. He had 15 in defenses, 3/4 damage reduction, and 2 body regen, some science skills, and comic book martial arts that threw 8d6. He had disads like overconfidence and"believes he can take any hit."

 

Ultimately, this led to Mr. I getting used as a weapon far more often than attacking on his own. Oh, well.

 

That's about the same defenses I used for Plastic Man who just about qualifies for the Mr. Invulnerable title.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Would you allow this?

 

Thinking back, I did a character kind of like that once, though not in a HERO game. I made a rather passive character with as high defenses as possible because I really wasn't that into the game and this gave me an excuse to not do anything.