Design a power to break focuses (or foci for the Latin nerds)

[Tech]

Huh. Hadn't realised they removed that - I've been using AP/10 = BOD as well.  Weird.  So this thing:

 

15 Mine is the Flashlight That Holds up the Heavens: Multipower, 30-point reserve, (30 Active Points); all slots OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)   1f

1) Sight Group Images, +/-4 to PER Rolls, Area Of Effect (8m Cone; +1/4) (27 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

3 1f

2) Sight Group Flash 6d6 (standard effect: 6 Segments) (30 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

3 1f

3) Bonk: Hand-To-Hand Attack +1d6 (5 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/4)

1 1f

4) Flashlight Parry: Deflection (20 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

2 1f

5) Climbing Pads: Clinging (normal STR) (10 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

0 1f

6) Laser!: Blast 1d6 (5 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

1 1f

7) Full power laser!: Tunneling 1m through 14 PD material (29 Active Points); OAF Durable (Flashlight; -1)

3

 

Could hold up the Statue of Liberty for 7 segments?

 

And I applaud your quality of players. Mileage varies. 

LOL!  You're right - 7 seconds.

[Christopher R Taylor]

WHile the other methods are simpler, I prefer to assign a body and defense value to an item based on its construction and use that for what breaks like everything else in the game.

[mrinku]

Spidey's bread and butter is dealing with Obvious Foci but it's funny... as written Entangle is a lot more binary than when he uses it - you get the entire target.

 

 

Accesible foci can be targeted in their own right, by definition. You can use a standard Entangle on a gun without affecting the entire holder, and they'd have to remove the entangle to use the gun again. 

 

Besides, who says those web tricks are standard Entangles? I'd have thought your basic webslinger would have at least Variable Advantage, if not a Multipower or VPP (Webbing tricks).

[Durzan Malakim]

Accesible foci can be targeted in their own right, by definition. You can use a standard Entangle on a gun without affecting the entire holder, and they'd have to remove the entangle to use the gun again. 

 

Besides, who says those web tricks are standard Entangles? I'd have thought your basic webslinger would have at least Variable Advantage, if not a Multipower or VPP (Webbing tricks).

 

Now I wonder if Dr. Strange has VPP called Focus Pocus.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Spiderman uses his webbing a lot like stretching in a lot of cases.  When you have like 33 DEX, you can do that stuff.

[DasBroot]

Indeed. My spider-like homages always have stretching in addition to entangle and such - it's an easier and more effective way to use the Disarm action at range against someone (by yanking the gun out of their hand) than trying to mess with telekinesis.

[mrinku]

I'm always in favour of using maneuvers instead of tricky power builds to do the same thing

[Tasha]

I've always felt that unbreakable should be worth a quarter less disadvantage (it's priced at 0 like durable).  Otherwise it's pure GM fiat if you allow Unbreakable or not.

 

"Ok, Jim... I see you have focus on two different pools and three powers. Are they all the same focus?"

 

"No. Pool 1 is my sword. It's Unbreakable."

"Uh huh. Why?"

 

"Forged by the gods in a time before time, when men where but a mote in the thoughts of a great one - to be bequeathed to a champion when the need arises."

 

"Alright. Fine. Cool sword.... and the others?"

 

"Next is a gauntlet.  Forged by the gods in a time before time...."

 

"Right. Next?"

 

"Next is a pair of boots..."

 

"The gods?"

 

"Yep."

 

"I'm guessing their break condition is 'smashed on the anvil that forged them?"

 

"Right in one."

 

"You know if you didn't want your foci broken you could have used ONly in Hero ID, right?"

 

"Nah. Not worth as many points."

 

I understand that it's priced at zero because in normal play a Durable is about as likely to get destroyed (ie not at all without significant effort) but it still feels a little off.

The Difference is that a Focus can still be taken away eventually. An inaccessable Focus just needs the user to be unconscious for a bit. OIAID (Only in Alternate ID), you can't take the item away. Just that the item must be part of an obvious ID (ie Iron Man's armor and Thor's Hammer. Both OIAID).

[Tasha]

All you need is t-port usable against others area of effect 2m radius only affects focii.

 

"Everything comes off of you except for you costume."

 

"That's not fair!"

 

"That's the big problem with a focus."

 

"Why wasn't the costume taken off then?"

 

"CCA says costumes are only in hero id.  Listen to your sagely GM next time."

You can't Teleport someone out of their Inaccessable Focus nor can you do that with something bought with Only in Alternate ID. It's why those limitations are smaller than Accessable Foci.

[Oruncrest]

One of my favorite example is a flashlight MP with 2 slots: wide and narrow beam. Ha! Your 4d6 KA doing 23 body can't even break my flashlight.

Wouldn't the Multipower count as just one power, and not two, for concideration of Foci breakage?

[dmjalund]

You can't Teleport someone out of their Inaccessable Focus nor can you do that with something bought with Only in Alternate ID. It's why those limitations are smaller than Accessable Foci.

I would insist the UOO be at least NND to do this.

[Tasha]

I would insist the UOO be at least NND to do this.

"However, someone who spends 1 Turn out of combat can take an Inaccessible Focus away from a character (or otherwise deprive him of its use and benefits). An Inaccessible Focus cannot be removed from a character who’s struggling or resisting." 6e1 pg 377

 

Allowing Teleportation to do this is HIGHLY unbalanced. I could see a huge DIspel that uses that as it's special effect. But not any form of Teleportation.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, teleport is too cheap a power to allow to remove inaccessible foci.

[Amorkca]

Would you allow Teleport to be the special effect of a Disarm?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure, but a disarm can't take away an OIF (unless its one of those 'weapon of opportunity' ones).

[mrinku]

Maybe, MAYBE allow it if the special effect made sense in terms of the usual 1-turn-out-of-combat rule.

[Hugh Neilson]

One of my favorite example is a flashlight MP with 2 slots: wide and narrow beam. Ha! Your 4d6 KA doing 23 body can't even break my flashlight.

 

 

Wouldn't the Multipower count as just one power, and not two, for concideration of Foci breakage?

Common and dramatic sense suggests this result, IMO.

[Hyper-Man]

...And is therefore an argument for characters paying points for such Foci to be allowed to apply the Unified Limitation to the Frameworks.

 

There might be exceptions though..

A Player might want to build a M16 with an underslung M203 grenade launcher without such a Limitation since I believe the M203 can be used on its own.

 

HM

[mrinku]

...And is therefore an argument for characters paying points for such Foci to be allowed to apply the Unified Limitation to the Frameworks.

 

There might be exceptions though..

A Player might want to build a M16 with an underslung M203 grenade launcher without such a Limitation since I believe the M203 can be used on its own.

 

HM

 

But would the M203 survive a flame blast hot enough to melt steel?

 

There is a case for sufficiently powerful attacks to take out more than one power bundled into a focus. As always, special effects are important.

[Hugh Neilson]

But would the M203 survive a flame blast hot enough to melt steel?

No. Did your flame hot enough to melt steel strike the M203, OR the M16? If you wanted it to hit two targets, maybe it should have been AoE, or some other advantage that would permit it to affect multiple targets. How powerful the attack is makes little difference if the target is not struck by it.

[mrinku]

No. Did your flame hot enough to melt steel strike the M203, OR the M16? If you wanted it to hit two targets, maybe it should have been AoE, or some other advantage that would permit it to affect multiple targets. How powerful the attack is makes little difference if the target is not struck by it.

 

But it's been defined as one focus, and they are physically connected. I can guarantee that if you heated up a rifle enough to melt it that other gadgets attached to it (grenade launcher, sniper scope, bayonet etc) are going to take damage through convection (plus the bullets would probably cook off, no to mention the grenades...). On the other hand, if the attack was a hypervelocity slug, it probably shouldn't affect them at all. This is within special effect rulings, which are always at the GM's pleasure. Naturally, if this happens commonly (and deliberately) you may want to require something rules-y. Spreading the flame attack to a one target area effect (-1 DC) would seem to be a reasonable way of doing this. Flame blast = sure. Hypervelocity slug = nope.

 

In regards to multipowers where the various powers all use a common means of delivery (gun barrel, bow, different ways of using the same staff etc) you should be able to take down the focus collectively. Superman ties a knot in the barrel. The bowstring is severed. The magic staff is cut in half by the even more magic sword.

 

HOW a focus is broken is important and affects what the owner can do about it. Severed bowstring? Maybe pull out an explosive arrow and throw it like a grenade. Broken staff? Maybe keep using it at reduced effect as two sticks. We've all seen this done in the comics and movies. (Bad luck about that gun barrel, though. But I guess the "clubbed rifle" power is still good.) 

[megaplayboy]

The simplest formulation is an HKA, boostable with STR, only vs objects or foci.  Depending upon the campaign parameters, you could wind up doing twice the campaign limit for DCs, but only for the OP purpose of foci breaking.  That's probably enough for most breakable foci, and the ones that aren't as breakable probably belong to higher level opposition, anyway.  

[Hyper-Man]

If the sfx were super-speed instead of just smashing/blasting the device the following 60 active point build will be very effective after 2-3 Phases,

 

0 10) Superspeed Disassembly: Dispel 10d6, Variable Special Effects (Any Technological Object; +1/4), Cumulative (120 points; +3/4) (60 Active Points); No Range (-1/2) Real Cost: 34 - END=6

 

HM

[mrinku]

Well, there's always Transform. Doesn't much matter how many slots there is in a gadget if you turn it into stone, or a fish, or even "disassembled" (Dr Manhattan did that one a couple of times).

 

Hmm... just took time to read CC again and at least under 6e it seems that power frameworks and Unified Powers only count as one power for the rule about "any body damage destroys one power". Fair enough.

 

Edit: The 4e rule was the same for multipowers (counts as one power). So unless 5e changed it, that flashlight is broke if it takes 1 body.

[Hugh Neilson]

But it's been defined as one focus, and they are physically connected. I can guarantee that if you heated up a rifle enough to melt it that other gadgets attached to it (grenade launcher, sniper scope, bayonet etc) are going to take damage through convection (plus the bullets would probably cook off, no to mention the grenades...). On the other hand, if the attack was a hypervelocity slug, it probably shouldn't affect them at all. This is within special effect rulings, which are always at the GM's pleasure. Naturally, if this happens commonly (and deliberately) you may want to require something rules-y. Spreading the flame attack to a one target area effect (-1 DC) would seem to be a reasonable way of doing this. Flame blast = sure. Hypervelocity slug = nope.

It's always interesting to see where we decide to get "realistic" in games.

 

In regards to multipowers where the various powers all use a common means of delivery (gun barrel, bow, different ways of using the same staff etc) you should be able to take down the focus collectively. Superman ties a knot in the barrel. The bowstring is severed. The magic staff is cut in half by the even more magic sword.

 

HOW a focus is broken is important and affects what the owner can do about it. Severed bowstring? Maybe pull out an explosive arrow and throw it like a grenade.

Maybe you should have bought the arrows as No Range charged powers, and the Bow as a Naked Advantage to add Range.

 

Broken staff? Maybe keep using it at reduced effect as two sticks. We've all seen this done in the comics and movies.

Can't tell whether the character bought the staff with points, or is just using a 1 point Clubs weapon element, though.