How to build: Immunity to Addiction?

[Sean Waters]

So, what Tasha said.

 

IMO, the problem is that Hero does not play nice when it comes to defences.  

 

If you want to be immune to the addictive properties of substances, Life Support with a limitation (only to avoid addiction or other long terms psychological effects -2) is the very thing.  That will cover alcohol and heroin and anything else that is a 'normal' thing in your world that you can get addicted to, at least chemically.  It will not protect you from golf, for example.

 

However, if there is a villain called Heroin whose power is a Mental Blast (or CE: Stunned) and who has a linked NND mental transform (either to add a complication or to mentally reprogramme you) then you are not immune to that power unless it is bought with LS: Poison as the NND quality.

 

Alternatively, Heroin could use a cumulative Mind Control on you that is linked to her Mental Blast.

 

I'm sure there are other ways to do it too.

 

Point is that you probably need 10 points of Power Defence and 20 points of Mental Defence (only to avoid addiction -2).  Even then that is not going to work if the damn thing is a NND or similar.

 

You could argue that a power does beyond normal addiction so SHOULD affect you, but it is a little aggravating, n'est pas?  you have a concept that you can not realise without a really convoluted and (probably) expensive build.

 

You could go mad and buy 120 points of damage reduction (vs addiction), if your GM allows such shenannigans, but, again, expensive.

 

What I'd do, right, is redefine Life Support.  At the moment it is all or nothing.  Why not allow it to be:

 

1. SFX based (it kinda is already) and,

2. Levelling - by which I mean 'not all or nothing'.

 

Actually, what I'm thinking of is scrapping Life Support for most purposes.  It would only be used for AON (All Or Nothing) situations: stuff that the game does not strictly define in terms of an attack power, so eating, sleeping, breathing, that sort of thing stays, everything that has a level goes.

 

For example you can no longer be immune to radiation: enough radiation will still get you.

 

So, we could build it with Damage Negation, I suppose.  Allow that to work against SFX, including stuff like transform and mind control, if it fits the SFX, and Bob is the male sibling of one of your parents.

[massey]

Well, you can drive yourself crazy trying to buy every type of defense for every attack imaginable, and then limiting it to a specific special effect.  I think the most appropriate route forward from that dilemma is to talk with the gamemaster.  Just ask the GM "what sort of things do I need to buy to be immune to XYZ thing?"

 

If the GM isn't planning on bringing in Addiction Lad with his Cumulative Penetrating Mind Control, or whatever it is, then you don't need to worry about it.  You buy the defenses that the GM says you need, and then you're immune.

 

I would note that in comic books at least, absolute immunity to something is not that common.  Ben Grimm, the Thing, is immune to disease (as far as I can tell), but it wouldn't be unusual to see someone with a special disease power be able to affect him.  Ben won't catch the flu, but somebody who bought an actual superpower may still be able to affect him.

 

For somebody with an NND attack, I'd say the appropriate Life Support would almost assuredly be a defense to it.  Even if they haven't listed the LS as one of the defenses, if there's something that on-point, it should be included.

[Surrealone]

The goal here certainly wasn't attack defenses/immunity but, rather, immunity from the addictive side effect of addictive substances/things (that may be used in attacks, combat enhancing drugs, etc.).

 

Based on this thread, it may not be a can of worms I wish to open, at all -- because there just doesn't seem to be a solid consensus on the approach.  If this highly experienced community is all over the map, the GM may not know where to take this, either -- and I don't expect it to be prominent enough to warrant the digging needed to figure out how to 'do this right'.

[kukuli]

I wouldn't allow immunity to cover all the possible addictions, unless the character was completly alien.  There are too many different chemical reactions and the drugs were presumably designed to work on most people.  Depending on how your GM is implementing the addictions, +3 or 4 to a Con roll might be more apropriate.

[steriaca]

Your surprised that we are all over the map on this? This is Hero. If there is one way to do things, then we will find another way. And more than one interptation of what you ask.

[Surrealone]

steriaca,

I'm not surprised at multiple approaches or by multiple interpretations ... or even by digressions/distractions (because some people just can't stay on topic, here).  However, often enough people's approaches trend along a somewhat common theme.  That hasn't happened in this thread, and, for a 1-3CP immunity that would play a minor role to add flavor (at best) in our game, it's truly not worth a lot more thought in my book.

 

Was there some language in my previous post that gave you the idea that I was surprised?  I'm asking because I wasn't surprised and wrote nothing that stated I was surprised.  (I appreciate you asking, by the way...)

[Sean Waters]

The sensible approach - ask the GM - is OK if the GM is writing the scenarios, but if they are using published work that they did not create they may not know what is coming up: I have seen multiple different approaches to implementing SFX.  In addition you sometimes get PCs facing off against each other, and who knows what they have built.

 

My solution would be to allow defences to be based on SFX rather than on specific mechanics.  The precedent is already there with, for example, Damage Reduction.

 

That way you can buy pd against 'disease' and it will work whether the disease is built as a physical attack, an energy atatck, a mental attack or a power attack: you'd still need resistant defences if it was built as a killing attack though.  It would work against NNDs (not negating them, but acting as a defence in the normal way), and any other build you come up with.

 

You would even get a cost break: somewhere between -1 and 0 depending on how common the SFX are.  I can even see how it might be an advantage in some cases for very common SFX.

 

Hero is about building what you want, and this seems an easy way to do that.

 

OK, that is slightly off the addiction topic, but addiction is either a handwave (in which case basic LS: poison would work fine) or it is a power build in which case 10 PD against addiction (-1) would sort out almost any addiction attack, or at least blunt it for 5 points, which seems reasonable.  It works, it is easy to understand and administer and it gives you more flexibility to define the character you want.  Moreover it scales as opposed to being AoN, and that is a good thing in a point based system.

[massey]

I wouldn't allow immunity to cover all the possible addictions, unless the character was completly alien. There are too many different chemical reactions and the drugs were presumably designed to work on most people. Depending on how your GM is implementing the addictions, +3 or 4 to a Con roll might be more apropriate.

Because not getting addicted to drugs is where you draw the line? Full life support, Flight, Force Fields, FTL travel, Desolid, these are all okay for a human to take, but by god, not getting addicted is just too unrealistic for you?

[IndianaJoe3]

I had another thought about this. If the drugs are built with addiction as a Side Effect, the character could do a, "naked buyoff" of it. Figure out how many points the Side Effect is reducing the cost of the Power, and charge the character that to avoid it.