Unified Power - is this a correct/ok way to do this?

[Luthervian]

Ok, i am putting together a villain for my Champions Tabletop Simulator session. He is a mutant and I want most of his abilities to come from him being a mutant - so that various "Mutant Suppression" powers (Drain Mutant Power, Suppress Mutant Power, etc) will pretty much shut him and other mutants down.

 

Using Hero Designer, I made a new list, named it Mutant! Added a common Modifier (Unified Power - Mutant!) to it so it would assign it to all powers in the list. I then added various things like Enhanced Strength +15, Enhanced Speed +2, etc. I also made a Multipower called "Sandblasting" and gave it a Unified Power modifier (Mutant!; -1/4) as well. then stuck a couple sand related powers into it. Hero Designer didn't object - but I'm not certain it would.

 

Is this an acceptable/correct way to build a mutant character? If some Nullifier Bands had 6d6 Drain (Mutant! power) would it drain 6d6 AP from all the Unified Powers? I'm pretty sure i understand what Unified Power does, but not positive I know how to implement it correctly - and I want to make sure its right before I spend a bunch of time making Power Cards and Character Sheets in Photoshop.

 

Edit: Also, with Characteristic Powers, what does the Add Modifiers to Base Characteristics supposed to do, game wise? I know that if i toggle it on, the various characteristics get even cheaper but no other changes that I can see. What's it for?

 

Edit Edit: I think possibly I have posted a long complicated question and additional unimportant stuff in the incorrect forum and it would have been better to put it in Discussion. I apologize.

 

I've included the particular Hero Designer Character plus some screenshots of my Champions TTS setup (just because).

 

Abrasion.hdc

Villain 3d model, Character Sheet, Power and Combat Maneuver cards, an Initiative Token, 3 Status Tokens

Abrasion spraying the hero Imp with a blast of sand. Imp's having a bad day - he's already been blinded by the villain.

 

 

Example Power Card - Sandspray

Assuming its built correctly. Sandspray is a variable power in Abrasion's Sandblasting Multipower so I tried to include scaling info for spending the Multipower's AP reserve. I haven't decided if I just want to use the static damage total or include dice rolling. The 7- for END means the power can cost up to 7 END depending upon the AP invested from the Multipower reserve.

 

[Steve Long]

No worries. I've moved this to the Discussion board, where anyone can reply.

[Doc Democracy]

I think what you are missing from your explanation of your understanding is that someone does not have to have Drain Mutant Powers.  If someone drains STR then every power that is connected to the STR gets drained a similar amount.  It reflects that they are all one thing and pulling a single thread in the bundle affects the whole bundle.

 

Doc

 

The whole thing looks fantastic by the way...

[Lucius]

10 hours ago, Luthervian said:

 

Edit: Also, with Characteristic Powers, what does the Add Modifiers to Base Characteristics supposed to do, game wise? I know that if i toggle it on, the various characteristics get even cheaper but no other changes that I can see. What's it for?

 

 

First, let me say your cards and tokens look very impressive.

 

Now, for the question I quoted, the toggle for "Add Modifiers to Base Characteristics" does exactly that - whatever modifiers you chose, now apply to the Characteristic as a whole, not just the portion you just bought. Someone once posted  a character for example who had a big bunch of INT with a "Concentration" Limitation, but had that toggle engaged. I pointed out "You know, if this character makes a full move or uses full DCV, their INT drops to zero?"

 

Okay, I took a look at your character. The way you have it, if someone hits you with a Drain Mutant Powers attack, if it's big enough, your STR, DEX, CON, SPD, END, STUN, PD and ED could all drop to ZERO. Without your mutant powers, you're not normal, you're LESS than a normal human - effectively helpless and unable to act. THAT'S why it's so cheap - you're effectively selling these things down to zero and buying them back but with the Limitations.

 

That's okay if you want that to happen of course, but I someow think you didn't expect that result.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Add palindromedary to base tagline

[Luthervian]

Doc Democracy and Lucious - Thank you for the compliments! - I moved away from all my gamer friends some time ago. Having a resource like tabletop simulator makes running games for them a possibility. Helps that I do 3d work to.

 

Ok, so the checkbox for characteristics powers means it can all go down to zero. Definately don't want that. I'll go back and uncheck them all. Its an NPC villain, so its not really an issue that i am looking for maximum efficiency on points! I just wasn't clear what the checkbox was for!

 

@Doc Democracy - If i want all the powers to be drained or surpressed specifically by something that only targets mutants, what is the proper way to do it? I don't exactly want Drain STR to affect the guy's Sand powers, but i would like the ability to suppress all mutant powers - without it being a really expensive piece of equipment (Drain ALL powers, limitation: Mutants only sounds very expensive).

 

im loving Hero System. I only wish i had discovered it sooner.

[Lucius]

55 minutes ago, Luthervian said:

@Doc Democracy - If i want all the powers to be drained or surpressed specifically by something that only targets mutants, what is the proper way to do it? I don't exactly want Drain STR to affect the guy's Sand powers, but i would like the ability to suppress all mutant powers - without it being a really expensive piece of equipment (Drain ALL powers, limitation: Mutants only sounds very expensive).

 

im loving Hero System. I only wish i had discovered it sooner.

 

You use Limited Power Limitation to create a new Limitation, "Mutant" - it acts as Unified Power for attacks targetting Mutant Powers specifically. But since Unified Power is a 1/4 Limitation and this is even less limiting, it's either a 0 Limitation (no cost break) or you add something else to make it more limiting. Maybe it automatically triggers mutant detectors or something.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Triggering a palindromedary detector

[Luthervian]

1 minute ago, Lucius said:

 

You use Limited Power Limitation to create a new Limitation, "Mutant" - it acts as Unified Power for attacks targetting Mutant Powers specifically. But since Unified Power is a 1/4 Limitation and this is even less limiting, it's either a 0 Limitation (no cost break) or you add something else to make it more limiting. Maybe it automatically triggers mutant detectors or something.

 

 

It's for NPCs, so I'm ok with it being a zero point limitation. I'm probably over thinking things. NPC police being able to contain NPC mutants and all - really, it could all be done with a handwave, for sure. I like the "automatically trigger mutant detectors" tho... things to ponder.

 

 

[dsatow]

I generally find that NPCs have no point limitations.  So the NPC is more likely to have 5d6 drain Drains all Mutant Powers +4 than the PC needing to limit their powers with unified power Mutant.

[Doc Democracy]

4 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

You use Limited Power Limitation to create a new Limitation, "Mutant" - it acts as Unified Power for attacks targetting Mutant Powers specifically. But since Unified Power is a 1/4 Limitation and this is even less limiting, it's either a 0 Limitation (no cost break) or you add something else to make it more limiting. Maybe it automatically triggers mutant detectors or something.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Triggering a palindromedary detector

 

Another option, this is HERO after all, would be to give him a complication of "Mutant".  That is limiting because he triggers alarms etc simply by being a mutant, it also means that "any" drain that specifically targets mutants will drain those powers in the Mutant list.  It does not make the powers themselves cheaper but it gives you added mechanical detail for that complication.  That would be a reasonably weighty complication if there are things that target mutant powers in the campaign, less so if there are not.

[incrdbil]

Just remember, even if they are unified, any form of Drain effect against any defense mutant characteristic that is a form of defense, the effect is halved. (CON, DCV, DMCV,
PD, ED, REC, END, BODY, and STUN).

The problem with Unified Power is that any drain, that hits any of those powers, taken them all down, even if, for special effect reasons it makes no sense. If some mages spell of Atrophy Muscles has nothing to do with mutant powers,  reduces a mutant heroes STR, which was bought with unified power, then everything is reduced.

When applied strictly like these, players are loathe to take unified power. In theory, the way to target all common special affect powers isn't to give a cost discount through limitation to characters, but charge a big costly advantage on attacks through variable and/or expanded effects.

 

And in a mixed campaign where there's all different types of origins, that is a perfectly fine way to do it.

 

But there are alternatives, especially if your game heavily is focused about certain types of powers (all mutants, all magic, or all hi tech heroes). This different way of handling unified power is by changing how it works: Unified power kicks in  when the players is targeted by a drain power that targets the special affect.

So you could have drains that target a mutant powers using the variable affect (affects mutant powers) advantage, and take a limitation of "affects only mutants". You  require all mutant powers to take Unified power limitation. .  Poof. That drain now reduces all mutant powers, but now your mutant heroes aren't losing every power and characteristic to random drains that have nothing to do with the special effect. Drains that don't buy variable affect and just pick out one power or ability don't have any additional affect.

Mutants with a  less vulnerable physiology might not take the unified power limitation..but their powers may still be mutations, and at least the original power named by the drain would be affected.

If mutant drains/power suppressors are common enough in the campaign, you can keep it at the same limitation level.  The above can be adapted for any special effect. It makes or certain less focused on powers than special effect. (Unified Power Magic Armor, Unified Power Cybernetic Suit, Unified Power telekinesis).

 

 

 

[IndianaJoe3]

2 hours ago, incrdbil said:

The problem with Unified Power is that any drain, that hits any of those powers, taken them all down, even if, for special effect reasons it makes no sense. If some mages spell of Atrophy Muscles has nothing to do with mutant powers,  reduces a mutant heroes STR, which was bought with unified power, then everything is reduced.

 

It's easy to create examples where Unified Power would seem to be appropriate, but applying Adjustment Powers with certain SFX creates illogical results. For example, take a telekinetic whose Blast, Flight, and Resistant Protection (force field) are all derived from his telekinesis. Unified Power would seem to make sense, since they are all manifestations of the same ability. Drain Telekinesis would reasonably affect all of them. OTOH, a Gravity Trap (Drain Flight) is defined narrowly as affecting one way that power is used. and should have no effect on others.

[Doc Democracy]

I don't agree.  The thesis of this discount is that despite being multiple powers, they are all the same one, different manifestations of that power.

 

if you reduce that power by draining a manifestation of it, you are reducing the power and so all manifestations of the power suffer.

 

if you cannot rationalise why this is a single power manifested in different ways then, in my game, you cannot take the limitation. In the telekinesis example, you have, mechanically, provided multiple routes in to drain the core power.

 

Doc

[LoneWolf]

I don’t think being a mutant qualifies as a special effect; it is more of a background.  If you allow this for mutants you should allow it for all other backgrounds.  If my character is a dragon then I should be able to apply it to almost everything on my character. 

 To drain all mutant powers at the same time will require the Expanded Effect advantage.  You cannot simply buy drain mutant powers.  You cannot take a limitation for something that is an advantage for the attack power. 

 If this did work any drain that hit the character would drain all his powers at the same time.  The reason being is that any power could be a mutation, since this is true any drain could work on a mutant if it has that power. Since the Unified Power limitation states that if you drain any power all of them with the limitation are also affected, this means any drain will drain mutant powers. 

[incrdbil]

11 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I don’t think being a mutant qualifies as a special effect; it is more of a background.  If you allow this for mutants you should allow it for all other backgrounds.  If my character is a dragon then I should be able to apply it to almost everything on my character. 

 To drain all mutant powers at the same time will require the Expanded Effect advantage.  You cannot simply buy drain mutant powers.  You cannot take a limitation for something that is an advantage for the attack power. 

 If this did work any drain that hit the character would drain all his powers at the same time.  The reason being is that any power could be a mutation, since this is true any drain could work on a mutant if it has that power. Since the Unified Power limitation states that if you drain any power all of them with the limitation are also affected, this means any drain will drain mutant powers. 

This particualr use is aimed mainly at campaigns that focus on one or two power sets, creating drains targeting special affects more than specific powers--it aids the attackers somewhat, in that versus the targeted effect,, they don't need the +2 advantage, whihc is still largely negated by a small amount of power defense. It makes unified power something a player might actually use, because the  limitation currently isn't worth applying to more than two or three powers not commonly drained. 

 

In a game with the usual multitude of power origins, its probably best to stick to the book.