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Ok. I know I am designing characters when my brain wanders in strange places...

 

In my head I have a new concept for HERO - negative powers.

 

Essentially, in character building we have powers, that cost us points and complications which make life more difficult. In older editions you offset a certain number of character building with points, in sixth you get told how complicated the GM requires your life to be, there is no direct link between the points you build with and the points you complicate your life with.

 

However, there are times when building a character that you seem to need to spend points to make your life more difficult. My current example is the speedster that I am building. I am making a few powers with the special effect of him rushing in, doing something and moving away again. Mechanically he will move much less distance than he actually does. However, the corollary of this is that some opponents should have the opportunity to hit him with HtH attacks. I sat down and costed an area effect that gave opponents range on their attacks when he was using a speed trick. It is not huge points but then it struck me that I shouldn't pay for something that hinders me but there is no way to do this mechanically (that I am aware of). There have been a few threads that have touched on this, possibly most often in regard to creating END Batteries that restrict the use of powers to achieve an effect not otherwise possible.

 

I know I could handwave a limitation on my power "can be hit by HtH attacks, from certain opponents, as if they were ranged" but I was thinking it might be cool to codify this in some way.

 

Am I onto something? Does this add or have I just not had enough sleep?

 

Doc

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Maybe its just late but I am just not following.  You have a character than can run up and do something and run away.  You feel that the villain should have the chance to punch your character when your character is next to him and him taking the effect when he's a bit away.

 

In HERO, an action usually ends your phase, so , hopefully I am deducing this correctly, you probably have a triggered movement to move you after you perform your action.  If this is the case, then you can define the trigger to go off at the end of the segment.

 

If you are using the move by mechanic, then in HERO, normally the target delays a phase in order to react when you get up to the target or performs some type of block action.

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I would recommend a custom limitation 'can be affected by damage shields' if your speedster has aoe/ranged powers with the sfx of running to and from the target(s) quickly.  I went the route of using teleport with the must cross intervening space limitation when building my rookie Flash for much the same reason as it invokes the same drawback.

 

HM

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Ok. Think about MrSpeed fighting MrPunch.

 

MrSpeed has bought a running punch power, it is an 8D6 penetrating auto-fire Energy Blast. The special effect is that MrSpeed rushes in, hits one target several times or several targets once, and then runs back. The mechanic does not put MrSpeed in range, even if MrPunch had a held action.

 

I am looking to allow those characters that have an action available to use that punch, even though the rules say they cannot.

 

As I said, I can build an area effect that would give range to all HtH attacks for people MrSpeed had to "run past" to make his attack. The thing is, why should those points come off my power budget? And if it does not, where does it come from. I don't think it is a complication as it is power dependent, it is not a side effect as it is currently defined but there might be a gap in the market.

 

I will try to find an example of buying an END Battery that limits utility. Another example where it would cost points to get worse at using powers.

 

Doc

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edit.

 

You just hit upon why I don't typically use EB/Blast for HTH based speedsters. 

 

What if there was a Force Wall/Barrier with IPE between the speedster and the target? 

 

The point being that the Limitation you are looking for is not actually on the 'attack' but rather the actual movement used to deliver it.

 

HM

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What if there was a Force Wall/Barrier with IPE between the speedster and the target? 

Then it would stop the attack, just like it would stop any ranged attack. That is not one of my problems. Even were I to use teleport it would have the limit of must move through intervening space.

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Then it would stop the attack, just like it would stop any ranged attack. That is not one of my problems. Even were I to use teleport it would have the limit of must move through intervening space.

 

It shouldn't just stop the attack. It should arguably force an uncontrolled movethrough by the speedster vs. the forcewall that could potentially damage the speedster depending on their 'speed' (the sfx of the attack) which is difficult at best to determine based on this type of build.  Obviously you want a more abstract approach so I will refrain from further posting on this thread.  Follow this link if you want to see my approach to building a rookie version of the Flash.

 

HM

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Humm...the same idea as my rethink of Timemaster, being that he normally has full control of his Extradimensinal Travel power, unless his armor (Physical Manifestation) is breached (taken BODY damage), where he is then flung back to Limbo where he must take 'time' to fix his armor before he can travel through time again and can't exactly return to the same moment he was forced to leave. A Physical Complication is recommended to simulate this effect, but couldn't it be simulated better as a naked advantage of Trigger placed upon the Complication section (reduced by Physical Manifestation)?

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It shouldn't just stop the attack. It should arguably force an uncontrolled movethrough by the speedster vs. the forcewall that could potentially damage the speedster depending on their 'speed' (the sfx of the attack) which is difficult at best to determine based on this type of build.  Obviously you want a more abstract approach so I will refrain from further posting on this thread.  Follow this link if you want to see my approach to building a rookie version of the Flash.

 

HM

No poison, happy for there to be chat, deviation and hesitation if necessary. :-)

 

I think that I am indeed veering down a narrative avenue here. I think the obvious thing to do, in a role play game, is to work out the mechanics and narrate what makes sense. Now we know that the mechanics are not going to suggest damage to MrSpeed and so, in this hyper speed state he is obviously able to notice microseconds into the collision and change direction before it does any significant damage....would be one way to do it. I could also use the limitation to convert forcewall to damage shield. Or whatever.

 

You might notice I am not trying to get away with anything here, just looking for mechanics to help out.

 

I am thinking that I might look at how side effect might be amended. I was also thinking that the effect could be costed and 1 subtracted from active points for every 5 points in the negative power after applying advantages and before applying limitations. I would cap the benefits at 1/4 of the active points. Or something like that.

 

Doc

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If the actual effect desired is for the character to "run over to a target, punch them, and then run back to your original position" wouldn't that be easily simulated with the mechanics of Move-By or Passing Strike? Either of which would allow the character to continue moving after performing a strike, and would simultaneously allow barriers to do their jobs, or allow the target to protect themselves with damage shields or hold an action to attack the character.

If you are doing lots of non-Attack action related stuff during your movement (such as defusing a bomb), than you simply buy enough skill levels with such skills to compensate for the penalties for Rushing the action down to a Zero-Phase Action (which could reasonably be considered two-steps up from 1 Phase), and give them the appropriate modifier to represent that those levels only apply to the penalties for rushing. For an example, see Rapid Tasks (Champions Powers 298)

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That is another way to do it but it is messier in play. I could also ignore all the edge effects...he is so fast you don't see him coming or get a chance to hit him back, contact is so brief that it does not trigger damage shields...

 

I like the ease of buying a ranged attack. I just wanted to explore adding an element of danger back into it.

 

It was simply an example though. There are other examples of things where it is easy to build but the cost falls on the character - just make things worse for himself. It is that situation in general I would like to examine.

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As a general rule, the character should never be paying points for something that directly hinders them. 

Any power which exposes the character to some sort of danger should be built as a Side Effect or Complication. If necessary a Side Effect can have an Active Point value in excess of the Active Point value of the power which triggers it (the limitation value simply doesn't increase because of it). Likewise a character can have Complications in excess of the number of Complication Points they need to match the CP they received from Complications (they just don't get any more CP for them).

 

Moving into house-rule territory, you could simply declare a 'Negative Power' (one which penalizes the character instead of benefiting them) to be a type of Complication in and of itself, and award the character Complication Points equal to the value of the power. For example, a character who always suffers a -2 penalty to all Perception Checks would receive the following Complication:

Poor Perception:  Negative Power (-2 to PER Rolls with All Senses) (-6 APs). Total Value:  6 points.

The value of which is based upon the cost of purchasing an equivalent amount of Enhanced Perception.

Anything more complicated than a static penalty probably needs some careful adjudication to ensure there isn't already a Complication which better serves that purpose.

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Another outside of the box idea could be...

 

Buy a vulnerability to damage shields where you take 1.5x damage from them, this could simulate the completion of your attack but also give them their defensive ability.

 

A Susceptibility might work, but not a Vulnerability.

 

The "run in, hit and run away" situation is actually a ranged attack which doesn't trigger a damage shield, if I'm reading this correctly.

 

On a different note: Multiform can be a "negative power". For example, if the Hulk has to pay points to turn into puny Banner, he is paying points to be less powerful. The reverse isn't the case - if Banner is the base form that pays for the Multiform, he is paying points to become more powerful. It's a bit nuts not to buy it this way around if you are building to a point budget.

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The advantage of paying to turn into 'puny' Banner is access to in genius-level Intellect and all of the Science Skills he bought as Bruce Banner.

If the lesser form were purely a weaker version of the same character, you'd be better off purchasing all of your enhanced abilities via Only In Heroic Identity (and triggered by Accidental Change in the case of The Hulk).

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Ok. I know I am designing characters when my brain wanders in strange places...

 

In my head I have a new concept for HERO - negative powers.

I believe variations on the concept of "negative powers" have come up several times over the years.

 

Essentially, in character building we have powers, that cost us points and complications which make life more difficult. In older editions you offset a certain number of character building with points, in sixth you get told how complicated the GM requires your life to be, there is no direct link between the points you build with and the points you complicate your life with.

The link is still direct, it's just been obscured. If you take less than the max allowed points in Complications, your character still starts with fewer total points, on a one for one basis.

 

 

However, there are times when building a character that you seem to need to spend points to make your life more difficult. My current example is the speedster that I am building. I am making a few powers with the special effect of him rushing in, doing something and moving away again. Mechanically he will move much less distance than he actually does. However, the corollary of this is that some opponents should have the opportunity to hit him with HtH attacks. I sat down and costed an area effect that gave opponents range on their attacks when he was using a speed trick. It is not huge points but then it struck me that I shouldn't pay for something that hinders me but there is no way to do this mechanically (that I am aware of). There have been a few threads that have touched on this, possibly most often in regard to creating END Batteries that restrict the use of powers to achieve an effect not otherwise possible.

 

I know I could handwave a limitation on my power "can be hit by HtH attacks, from certain opponents, as if they were ranged" but I was thinking it might be cool to codify this in some way.

 

Am I onto something? Does this add or have I just not had enough sleep?

 

Doc

For the specific situation you are describing, I would probably go with using Side Effects or Limited Power. But there is some precedent now for having Powers with a negative cost; for example if you want to be completely blind the current RAW is to "sell off" the sense for a defined point value rather than take a Complication for it.

 

I was toying with the idea for a while of eliminating Complications in favor of having Negative Powers but have not extensively playtested it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And an extensively playtested palindromedary

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I think a negative power really is just a Susceptibility or Physical Complication - or that is how I would handle them.  That is not how I would approach this build though.

 

In your situation in particular, I would build this power from the effect the you want.  If I were to build a speedster's HTH attack as a ranged attack that allows him to zip in, attack, and zip back, then my thought would be that he does it so fast no one can hit him.  I would probably include a Limitation on it that he is affected by Damage Shield on targets he hits.

 

To do what you want to do, I would build it as a Triggered Teleport.  Basically he runs in, attacks, and then at the end of the Phase his Teleport is triggered and gets him out of immediate physical danger.  This not only more closely matches what physically happens, but it also give him the flexibility to Teleport to someplace other than his original starting position.

 

The ranged attack version is a clever exploit of the sfx of this power, but not really accurate which is why I think the Triggered Teleport is the way to go.  Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

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It sounds to me like the Limitation you're looking for is something akin to Physical Manifestation.  In this case, the physical manifestation is the character's own body.  So anything that would stop the character's body, stops the power.  And then you can add something like Feedback on top of that - anything that damages (or otherwise affects) the Physical Manifestation, damaged the character himself.

 

I think these are the closest Limitations to what you're describing.

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