Improving Intimidation

[LordQulex]

So as far as my group can tell, intimidation is a presence attack. One of my PCs wants to improve their intimidation, which normally isn't too rough but in this case, I can't find much in the book aside from the obvious solution of increasing your presence. In a heroic level with normal human characteristic maxima, that's kind of expensive. So I as a stop gap I'm having her buy PRE as a power, with a -2 Limited Power (only works for intimidation) but can only buy as much presence as her character has. This gives her a 5d6 presence attack, which is reasonable in a heroic campaign. 

 

Have any of you had a PC that wants to intimidate better? How did you handle it?

 

Thanks!

[Steve Long]

You figured out the answer to your own question perfectly, though the Limitation should have a different value if you want to follow examples in published books. You buy extra PRE with the Limitation Only For Fear-/Intimidation-Based Presence Attacks (-1). 

[Christopher]

So this was moved from Rules Questions to Hero System, so I guess participation is wanted.

 

One cheaper way to buff PRE attacks would be "Striking Appereance".

While originally defined as "Pretty" or "Ugly", I simply view it as limited presence. So it could be used for "Intimidating Presence" just as well.

[IndianaJoe3]

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

One cheaper way to buff PRE attacks would be "Striking Appereance".

While originally defined as "Pretty" or "Ugly", I simply view it as limited presence. So it could be used for "Intimidating Presence" just as well.

 

I've used that exact build.

[Lucius]

23 hours ago, LordQulex said:

So as far as my group can tell, intimidation is a presence attack. One of my PCs wants to improve their intimidation, which normally isn't too rough but in this case, I can't find much in the book aside from the obvious solution of increasing your presence. In a heroic level with normal human characteristic maxima, that's kind of expensive. So I as a stop gap I'm having her buy PRE as a power, with a -2 Limited Power (only works for intimidation) but can only buy as much presence as her character has. This gives her a 5d6 presence attack, which is reasonable in a heroic campaign. 

 

Have any of you had a PC that wants to intimidate better? How did you handle it?

 

Thanks!

 

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

So this was moved from Rules Questions to Hero System, so I guess participation is wanted.

 

One cheaper way to buff PRE attacks would be "Striking Appereance".

While originally defined as "Pretty" or "Ugly", I simply view it as limited presence. So it could be used for "Intimidating Presence" just as well.

 

That would work if Lord Qulex were using 6th edition, but I"m pretty sure he's using 5th.

 

However, I want to point out that one way to enhance a PRE attack is to use a PRE based Skill, like Oratory; Or possibly inventing a new PRE based Skill called Intimidation. Making the roll for the Skill adds 1d6 and making it by half adds 2d6 to PRE attacks.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Animal Handler: Palindromedaries

[Duke Bushido]

One thing I cannot stress enough is to consider the character's reputation.  If a character has a well-known reputation for "unpleasant behavior," and the person he is trying to intimidate is aware of that reputation... well, that's a plus.

 

What's the current situation?  If the character being intimidated is at a clear disadvantage, even if it's just in this moment--- for example, even a military general, when caught alone and dragged into an alley, is just a well-disciplined old man being held captive and threatened by someone else-- well that's a plus, too.

 

What's the character's motivation to intimidate the target?  If there is some established bad blood there, well that's a plus.

 

So what's that thing I can't stress enough?  The thing for which there is no hard math, no power to buy, no points to spend: the actual situation, and the role (with an "e" ) playing aspect of the game.

 

 

Hope something there helps!

 

Duke

 

[LordQulex]

3 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

 

That would work if Lord Qulex were using 6th edition, but I"m pretty sure he's using 5th.

 

However, I want to point out that one way to enhance a PRE attack is to use a PRE based Skill, like Oratory; Or possibly inventing a new PRE based Skill called Intimidation. Making the roll for the Skill adds 1d6 and making it by half adds 2d6 to PRE attacks.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Animal Handler: Palindromedaries

 

6E1 382 - Limited Power: Power loses almost all of its overall effectiveness. (-2)

 

I'm using 6th edition, I just figured that using EGO for the sole purpose of intimidation was extremely limiting. Though when Steve Long tells you that it's Only For Fear/Intimidation-Based Presence Attacks (-1), you listen. ?

[Lucius]

35 minutes ago, LordQulex said:

 

6E1 382 - Limited Power: Power loses almost all of its overall effectiveness. (-2)

 

I'm using 6th edition,

 

My mistake; I assumed if you had 6th edition you would have gone for Striking Appearance for this.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Striking Appearance: riding a palindromedary

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

32 minutes ago, LordQulex said:

6E1 382 - Limited Power: Power loses almost all of its overall effectiveness. (-2)

 

I'm using 6th edition, I just figured that using EGO for the sole purpose of intimidation was extremely limiting. Though when Steve Long tells you that it's Only For Fear/Intimidation-Based Presence Attacks (-1), you listen. ?

Presence attacks are terrifyingly effective.  Remember that they can be used at absolutely any time, even if your initiative hasn't come up yet or even if it's not your phase.  Add to that that presence attacks can easily keep an enemy without proper defenses (very common) locked down for multiple phases and still keep them at partial actions for a while afterward. 

 

And don't be too quick to take Steve Long's word as sacred truth: Consider if the values in the book are right for your group.  For example, a power doing STUN Only is normally a -0 but if your campaign is lousy with automatons and the character has no equally powerful attacks it can and should be worth more.  On the flip side, if the GM intends for live capture of supervillains to be difficult but rewarding, STUN Only might be an Advantage! 

[Christopher]

8 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Presence attacks are terrifyingly effective.  Remember that they can be used at absolutely any time, even if your initiative hasn't come up yet or even if it's not your phase.  Add to that that presence attacks can easily keep an enemy without proper defenses (very common) locked down for multiple phases and still keep them at partial actions for a while afterward.  

Indeed. Characteristics Maxima are also there to prevent Presence Attacks from becomming too effective. Limited Presence must be held to a similar standard.

 

Of course PRE Attacks are already deep in "GM decision territory". So this is more a mater of being vigilant about abusive use.

[Hugh Neilson]

18 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Presence attacks are terrifyingly effective.  Remember that they can be used at absolutely any time, even if your initiative hasn't come up yet or even if it's not your phase.  Add to that that presence attacks can easily keep an enemy without proper defenses (very common) locked down for multiple phases and still keep them at partial actions for a while afterward.

 

Very true.  Also, IMO, irrelevant for determining the appropriate limitation on PRE which can be used only for fear/intimidation based PRE attacks, and therefore not to improve other PRE attacks, PRE-based skills or PRE defense.  If "only for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" is removing half the benefits of PRE, then logically PRE "not for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" should get a -1 limitation, as it gives up the other half of the benefits.

[Duke Bushido]

25 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If "only for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" is removing half the benefits of PRE, then logically PRE "not for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" should get a -1 limitation, as it gives up the other half of the benefits.

 

 

This is pretty much what we've done for years:

 

We split "additional PRE" into a power and a Characteristic: the power is called "Presence Attack" (because I'm not always creative) and costs 2.5 / die.  It adds to your additional PRE attack.  It's priced at essentially Presence: -1 Limitation.

 

Same with FD (presence defense, the characteristic), which we price at 2FD/1CP-- again, Presence at a -1 Limitation.  Not only does it simplify things for the newer players (when that happens), it saves a lot of room on the character sheet as well.

 

(we also made Mental Defense (or EGO defense, depending on which you prefer to call it ) a Characteristic, but that's pretty straight forward, really)

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

6 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Very true.  Also, IMO, irrelevant for determining the appropriate limitation on PRE which can be used only for fear/intimidation based PRE attacks, and therefore not to improve other PRE attacks, PRE-based skills or PRE defense.  If "only for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" is removing half the benefits of PRE, then logically PRE "not for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" should get a -1 limitation, as it gives up the other half of the benefits.

It's highly relevant: PRE attacks being effective indicates PRE useable for that purpose has not lost "almost all of its overall effectiveness". 

 

The math of inverting a limitation frequently doesn't work out, same for segmenting a power or characteristic.  PRE makes a pretty good example here.  It provides PRE attacks, PRE defense, and interaction skills. 

Buying an interaction skill level is 5 real per +1, but that's silly so let's use the 6E price of 4 real per +1. 

PRE attacks are vaguely similar to Mind Control, so compare them to that.  But they've got AoE that ignores allies too.  Mind Control with AoE Any Area (+1), Set Effect (PRE attack results) (-1/2), Noncumulative (-1/2), Instant (-1/2) seems like a reasonable simple approximation and comes in at 4 real per d6. 

PRE defense thus sounds like Mental Defense Only Against PRE attacks (-1), so 2.5 real per 5 points. 

Summing those, we get a cost of 10.5 real per 5 real of PRE.  Which doesn't make sense until you realize that, much like how a noncom skill level is cheaper than buying one each of agility, interaction, and intellect skill levels, you're getting a discount for the package deal.  Attempting to split things out based on the final price frequently results in unbalanced prices because of those unwritten discounts. 

 

An equally direct example would be attempting to invert Only Against Foo applied to any defense power. 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

It's highly relevant: PRE attacks being effective indicates PRE useable for that purpose has not lost "almost all of its overall effectiveness". 

 

The math of inverting a limitation frequently doesn't work out, same for segmenting a power or characteristic.  PRE makes a pretty good example here.  It provides PRE attacks, PRE defense, and interaction skills.

 

The fact that the inversion math does not work indicates that the pricing is flawed.  This is also true for the cost of segmented characteristics.  PRE is a bargain for all that it provides if the pricing of skill levels is appropriate, or the skill levels are overpriced.  I believe there is a combination of the former and the latter, and it indicates that PRE, INT, DEX and EGO, and their component parts, need to be revisited.

 

DEX provides DEX rolls and initiative.  I think 2 points is reasonably priced.  That means that, for 10 points, you can buy +1 to all DEX rolls and +5 to Initiative.  So, for 5 points, you should be able to get +1 to all DEX rolls OR +5 to initiative.  If you only get +1 to 1 DEX roll at a time, or +1 to a subset of DEX rolls, that should cost less.  By that logic, +1 to all DEX skills could cost 4 points, +1 to any one DEX skill at a time (or +1 with a subset of DEX skills) could cost 3 points, +1 to any one of a subset of DEX skills at a time becomes +2 and a +1 bonus to a single DEX skill becomes +1.  Initiative for limited purposes is also reduced in cost, probably down to +5 for 1 point for only one possible action.

 

INT provides INT rolls and PER rolls.  So split the two, and make INT + CP per +1.  Skill rolls work like DEX.  Enhanced PER is +1 for 5 points, drop that to +4 for a group of senses including a targeting sense, +3 for a single targeting Sense or a group of senses lacking targeting senses, +2 for a single non-targeting sense group or one targeting sense and +1 for a single non-targeting sense.

 

PRE provides PER skills and PRE attacks.  Bump it to 2 points as well.  Price skills as above.  +1d6 PRE attacks becomes 5 points, and limited types of PRE attacks get limitations accordingly.  Remove PRE defense - being impressive need not mean being hard to impress, and being terrifying need not make one fearless.

 

EGO stays at 5 points, with EGO rolls making up half that value and PRE defense making up the other half.

 

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

PRE attacks are vaguely similar to Mind Control, so compare them to that.  But they've got AoE that ignores allies too.  Mind Control with AoE Any Area (+1), Set Effect (PRE attack results) (-1/2), Noncumulative (-1/2), Instant (-1/2) seems like a reasonable simple approximation and comes in at 4 real per d6. 

PRE defense thus sounds like Mental Defense Only Against PRE attacks (-1), so 2.5 real per 5 points. 

Summing those, we get a cost of 10.5 real per 5 real of PRE.  Which doesn't make sense until you realize that, much like how a noncom skill level is cheaper than buying one each of agility, interaction, and intellect skill levels, you're getting a discount for the package deal.  Attempting to split things out based on the final price frequently results in unbalanced prices because of those unwritten discounts.

 

So take out the discounts.  This is Hero - you get what you pay for.  6e went a LONG way to fixing that by splitting out DEX and making it possible to be combat-effective at a reasonable price without being an Olympic gymnast, and removing the "figured characteristics freebies" which made STR and CON the only cost-effective approach for having high figured characteristics.  Now fix the rest of the characteristics in similar manner.

 

I spent a lot of time thinking DEX, INT and PRE should be priced the same, 1 point each.  But I finally realized that I was right about equal cost, and wrong about the appropriate cost - 6e got DEX right, but not INT and PRE, and still overprices skill levels.

[Christopher]

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If "only for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" is removing half the benefits of PRE, then logically PRE "not for fear/intimidation-based PRE attacks" should get a -1 limitation, as it gives up the other half of the benefits. 

That is not how Limitations work. Half the effectiveness is less then -1.

 

If you apply a -1 Limiation "only for Presence Attack Dice" to PRE, people will find a way to make 3 times as many PRE-attacks with those extra dice.

 

When in doubt, pick the limitation value lower. It is way, way easier to increase it later (freeing up Character points), then it is to lower it (wich would drain Character Points).

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

 

If you apply a -1 Limiation "only for Presence Attack Dice" to PRE, people will find a way to make 3 times as many PRE-attacks with those extra dice.

 

I don't have a huge issue with this.  Presumably if they bought it they did so because it's an important part of the character concept, Ala Batmunch. 

 

I mean, people who buy Flight and Energy Blast tend to use those a lot more than people who don't, yet few people are bothered by that. 

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

That is not how Limitations work. Half the effectiveness is less then -1.

 

-1  Power loses about half its overall effectiveness

 

I also note that Activate 11- is a -1 limitation which means the power works 62.5% of the time.  I can get behind that being a loss of half effectiveness - it only fails a bit over 1/3 of the time, but the uncertainty reduces effectiveness as well.

 

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

If you apply a -1 Limiation "only for Presence Attack Dice" to PRE, people will find a way to make 3 times as many PRE-attacks with those extra dice.

 

I don't know why it would be surprising or disturbing that players would want to use the abilities they paid points for.  Players who buy Hand Attacks make a lot of HTH attacks too.  We all ttrry to kleverage our strengths, and mitigate our weaknesses.

 

3 hours ago, Christopher said:

When in doubt, pick the limitation value lower. It is way, way easier to increase it later (freeing up Character points), then it is to lower it (wich would drain Character Points).

 

It's amazing how quick we are to jump all over "limitations which are not limiting", but when an ability does not provide value commensurate with its cost, we seem to be much more OK with that.  I find many of the book examples lowball limitations.  Defenses that work against only one type of attack are a great example.  Fire is pretty common, but way more than half of attacks against ED are not fire.  Sure, the player can try to engage in combat against fire users.  The opponents can also try to target Mr. Asbestos with non-fire attacks. 

[Hugh Neilson]

Taking this to another level, when players only buy combat abilities, they lean to combat as the solution to every problem.  When other abilities are less useful for their point cost, we encourage players to only buy combat abilities. 

 

When the discount for limitations is far less than the lost of benefits from the limited ability, why limit the ability at all?  Just buy the full ability and take all the extra benefits.

 

Playing in concept should be encouraged.  Making certain concepts more expensive/less efficient than other concepts is a terrific way to discourage playing in, or even selecting, those concepts.

[Christopher]

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I mean, people who buy Flight and Energy Blast tend to use those a lot more than people who don't, yet few people are bothered by that. 

Except:

a) Flight and Blast as not normal Characteristics/Powers. So your example does not work.

b) The discussion is about allowing this to explicitly exceed NCM.

c) There is a lot of balance issues comming from this

 

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I don't have a huge issue with this.  Presumably if they bought it they did so because it's an important part of the character concept, Ala Batmunch. 

Well, being OP is a important part of my Charater. So I guess you should allow me to ignore the maximum amount of points as well as Attribute and defense caps.

 

You are free to bend the rules however you like. YOu can indeed ignore the optional rule of "Normal Characteristics Maxima" entirely. But then you have to deal with all the fallout from that too.

 

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I don't know why it would be surprising or disturbing that players would want to use the abilities they paid points for.  Players who buy Hand Attacks make a lot of HTH attacks too.  We all ttrry to kleverage our strengths, and mitigate our weaknesses. 

Fun facts:

On CD's they applied the 8/14 encoding. This almost doubeled the amount of CD bits you need for one byte of data.

However it also allowed about 3 times as many bits to be put on the CD. For a net increase of almost 50%.

 

Going from Sata 1.5 Gbit/s to Sata 3.0 Gbit/s required applying hte 8b/10b encoding.

Literally added +20% overhead, but allowed the doubling of the speed.

 

With Limitations, it is the Net result that maters.

"A Limitation that doesn’t limit the character isn’t worth any bonus!"

We can not just ignore the Net effect.

 

[dsatow]

The value of a limitation is subjective to the GM, players and campaign.  A -1 limitation is just a general starting point for an estimated 1/2 effective use case and one can argue that "offensively", Presence only for attacking can be used in skills more easily like in Oratory.  Depending on the GM and playstyle of the players, I can see the limitation being -1/2 to -1 1/2, so a general -1 seems fine to me.

[Duke Bushido]

38 minutes ago, Christopher said:

Except:

a) Flight and Blast as not normal Characteristics/Powers. So your example does not work.

b) The discussion is about allowing this to explicitly exceed NCM.

c) There is a lot of balance issues comming from this

 

Well, being OP is a important part of my Charater. So I guess you should allow me to ignore the maximum amount of points as well as Attribute and defense caps.

 

I have to admit, I didn't know there a direct connection between NCM and campaign caps. 

 

Though last I knew, the "hard limit" for NCM was mostly set by the GM, with a couple if suggestions (haven't read 4e in a while, but it seems like suggested hard limit was 25 or 30 with a mandatory soft limit at 20,beyond which you paid more. 

 

I don't remember anything tying it to campaign limits, but I remember a built-in "in case you want more" mechanic. 

 

38 minutes ago, Christopher said:

 

Fun facts:

On CD's they applied the 8/14 encoding. This almost doubeled the amount of CD bits you need for one byte of data.

 

Your the same guy who just said the discussion is about allowing a build that exceeds NCM, right?

 

Nah; I'm just picking: ignore that except for the humor it was intended to be.  Except for this part:

 

38 minutes ago, Christopher said:

However it also allowed about 3 times as many bits to be put on the CD. For a net increase of almost 50%.

 

Going from Sata 1.5 Gbit/s to Sata 3.0 Gbit/s required applying hte 8b/10b encoding.

Literally added +20% overhead, but allowed the doubling of the speed.

 

With Limitations, it is the Net result that maters.

"A Limitation that doesn’t limit the character isn’t worth any bonus!"

We can not just ignore the Net effect.

 

 

I don't think your example is valid, being as how that became the new standard. 

It didn't get a bonus or a limitation.  The rules were revised and NCM was raised. 

 

So is this an invalid example or is it an example of the freedom to ignore or change the rules? 

[Christopher]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I have to admit, I didn't know there a direct connection between NCM and campaign caps.  

How was that in question???

Both limit how high you can buy a stat, just with different caps and different mechanics.

I do consider two different flavors of Icecream still icecream.

 

Please stop with your feingned "I do not understand" thing. I am not falling for it.

[Duke Bushido]

45 minutes ago, Christopher said:

How was that in question???

Both limit how high you can buy a stat, just with different caps and different mechanics.

I do consider two different flavors of Icecream still icecream.

 

How?  Because I've rarely seen a campaign, in _any_ genre, with caps set dead at NCM; that's how it's in question.  In fact, I hadn't seen anything in this thread until your post that suggested otherwise (though I admit I may well have missed something: it got pretty dry pretty quickly)

 

Quote

 

Please stop with your feingned "I do not understand" thing. I am not falling for it.

 

Would you then at least do me the favor of telling me what the heck you're talking about?

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Duke I went back to the original post and yeah the Poster was talking about NCM as a cap. I missed it the first round I read it.

[Hugh Neilson]

5 hours ago, Christopher said:

Except:

a) Flight and Blast as not normal Characteristics/Powers. So your example does not work.

b) The discussion is about allowing this to explicitly exceed NCM.

c) There is a lot of balance issues comming from this

 

Well, being OP is a important part of my Charater. So I guess you should allow me to ignore the maximum amount of points as well as Attribute and defense caps.

 

You are free to bend the rules however you like. YOu can indeed ignore the optional rule of "Normal Characteristics Maxima" entirely. But then you have to deal with all the fallout from that too.

 

 I thought we were discussing pricing.  Now we seem to be discussing NCM and campaign caps. 

 

I would not expect any character to exceed campaign caps whether or not they are limiting the ability (unless the GM wishes to provide special dispensation for the character, potentially because the limitations render the ability "not unbalancing" to exceed campaign caps.  I also have never seen a GM allow exceeding the campaign caps as long as you pay double, although 6e v1 p 52 notes it as an option.

 

NCM seems like a red herring if we are discussing limited characteristics, since characteristics with limitations are purchased as powers and therefore the doubled cost for exceeding NCM does not apply (6e v1 p 178).  That would be why the cost of Striking Appearance is not doubled.  Striking Appearance is a 40% discount, somewhere between -1/2 and -3/4, or -1 1/2 if it only affects a limited group (2 points per +1d6 and +1 to interaction skills).

 

Isn't using an OPTIONAL rule bending the normal rules?

 

1 hour ago, Christopher said:

How was that in question???

Both limit how high you can buy a stat, just with different caps and different mechanics.

I do consider two different flavors of Icecream still icecream.

 

Please stop with your feingned "I do not understand" thing. I am not falling for it.

 

NCM does not limit how high you can buy a stat, it changes how expensive it is.  Unless you want to suggest campaign point levels are similarly limiting how high you can buy a stat, since you cannot buy it higher than your total points will permit.

 

Finally, please stop assuming that anyone who disagrees with you, or fails to follow your "logic", is doing so tactically, and just to annoy you or defuse your arguments.  It not only gets in the way of reasonable discourse, it's just tiresome.