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Tywyll

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38 minutes ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

[CITATION NEEDED], because that ain't how it be in my books.  In fact, my books explicitly state the opposite, that CE can't make light (FRED p135, 6E1p175). 

 

Well, I'm a fourth edition kind of guy. I  saw problems with the changes in fifth and never even bought a copy of sixth.

I did look at a friends copy of Fusion  once.

 

This is typical of the way later editions convoluted simple mechanics to create problems which didn't exist before. 

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1st through 3rd edition -- didn't have Change Environment.  Light Illusions (from the Champions II supplement) and Images (the Fantasy Hero version of Light Illusions) explicitly could create light. 

 

4th edition -- Change Environment could explicitly create light.  Images (the successor Power to Light Illusions) doesn't mention light. 

 

5th & 6th edition -- Change Environment is explicitly prohibited from creating light.  Images explicitly can create light.  

 

I don't believe in the inherent superiority of any one edition over any other, and even if I did, the "correct" mechanic for creating light would not be one of my criteria for deciding.  

 

Images works, even though it's expensive.  Change Environment works, if your edition and/or GM allows it.  Free as part of another light-based power is fine.  A custom power is fine, if your GM allows it.

 

Agree to disagree?  

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6 hours ago, Solitude said:

 

Well, I'm a fourth edition kind of guy. I  saw problems with the changes in fifth and never even bought a copy of sixth.

I did look at a friends copy of Fusion  once.

 

This is typical of the way later editions convoluted simple mechanics to create problems which didn't exist before. 

That’s all well and good however the OP’s question asked about a fifth ed question.

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11 minutes ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Speaking of editions, there is one specific question I really want to have answered:  If the price of Normal Sight has gone up from 25 points in 5e to 35 points in 6e, has the point value of Blindness gone up as well?

Yes, being blind in 6E nets you 35 points.  It's not a PhysLim anymore though, it's selling back your Normal Sight. 

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Best not get me started on this one as this is already page 10, but you can't really build normal sight with the Enhanced Senses rules straight out of the box, you need a custom modifier because, apparently, 'discriminatory'.

 

I, well, I'm confused.  Who thought that was a good idea?

 

Interestingly enough there's an argument to be made that the value of blindness should not be the same as the value of sight because you have other senses and you can buy 'targeting' for 10 points for a single sense.  Also even if you don't you can still perceive a great deal with a PER roll using another sense.

 

The Complication should be based (arguably) on how often and how much it is a problem rather than a direct cost comparison.  We do not, for example, cost Vulnerability (2xStun) to Fire by the cost of buying 1/2 Damage Resistance to Fire.

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The cost of normal senses is considered to be the same as the point value one would receive for its loss as a Physical Limitation or Complication.  Thus, the cost for normal sight of 25 points in 5th edition or 35 points in 6th.  

 

Also, the normal senses are considered to fall under the "simulated Sense Groups" rule.  Normal sight is Targeting and (partly) Discriminatory because the Sight Sense Group is Targeting and Discriminatory.  

 

7 minutes ago, Sean Waters said:

The Complication should be based (arguably) on how often and how much it is a problem rather than a direct cost comparison.  We do not, for example, cost Vulnerability (2xStun) to Fire by the cost of buying 1/2 Damage Resistance to Fire.

 

Agreed.

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9 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

The cost of normal senses is considered to be the same as the point value one would receive for its loss as a Physical Limitation or Complication.  Thus, the cost for normal sight of 25 points in 5th edition or 35 points in 6th.  

 

Also, the normal senses are considered to fall under the "simulated Sense Groups" rule.  Normal sight is Targeting and (partly) Discriminatory because the Sight Sense Group is Targeting and Discriminatory.  

 

 

...

 

Hi Chris :)

 

True, but I can not get my head round the need (partially) discriminatory: sight has to be an example of something that almost everyone has direct experience of.  It's discriminatory, or 'discriminatory' is written wrong i.e. in a way that people can not easily relate to.  Sorry: that has bugged me since it first happened.  That is an aside from the actual question at hand, but sometimes I need to vent.

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5 hours ago, Sean Waters said:

Interestingly enough there's an argument to be made that the value of blindness should not be the same as the value of sight because you have other senses and you can buy 'targeting' for 10 points for a single sense.  Also even if you don't you can still perceive a great deal with a PER roll using another sense.

 

Blind is no longer a complication.  It is a sellback, like -2 meters of running or -3 INT.

 

You do not get a discount to Radar Sense because you already have targeting sight and can perceive a lot with other senses.  Why should you have a reduced sellback for losing Sight?

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20 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Blind is no longer a complication.  It is a sellback, like -2 meters of running or -3 INT.

 

You do not get a discount to Radar Sense because you already have targeting sight and can perceive a lot with other senses.  Why should you have a reduced sellback for losing Sight?

There's an argument to be made that because Sight is a very common target for Flash/Darkness, it should be less valuable.  A sort of inverse to how ED and PowD cost the same but a 6d6 Blast that goes against ED is cheaper than a 6d6 Blast against PowD. 

I'll admit that were I min-maxing a 6e character, one of my first decisions would be to sellback Sight and replace it with an exotic alternative. 

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Remember also that each sense is unique, it does something that other senses don't do.  If you've sold back your sight and bought passive sonar instead (Spacial Awareness based on hearing), then you can no longer see colors or color contrasts - meaning you can't read anything printed, you can't "cut the red wire, not the blue wire", you can't recognize someone by their clothing or skin color, etc.

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3 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Remember also that each sense is unique, it does something that other senses don't do.  If you've sold back your sight and bought passive sonar instead (Spacial Awareness based on hearing), then you can no longer see colors or color contrasts - meaning you can't read anything printed, you can't "cut the red wire, not the blue wire", you can't recognize someone by their clothing or skin color, etc.

But unless most/all of the group is blinding themselves for ultimate cosmic power, that's not going to come up barring awkward contrivance or an obsession with splitting the party.  You just have a teammate read things aloud, hand them the pliers, or have them mention they recognize this guy.  Teamwork! 

In my current Champions game, there's an illiterate PC.  This has yet to come up at all, since there's the rest of the team to read things aloud for them. 

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

But unless most/all of the group is blinding themselves for ultimate cosmic power, that's not going to come up barring awkward contrivance or an obsession with splitting the party.

Parties get split all the time without anyone having an obsession with it.

 

If you've disadvantaged yourself to save points or have greater power in some other area, any good GM is going to make that matter once in a while - without ever being "obsessed".

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51 minutes ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Parties get split all the time without anyone having an obsession with it.

 

If you've disadvantaged yourself to save points or have greater power in some other area, any good GM is going to make that matter once in a while - without ever being "obsessed".

It's damn near impossible for a GM to subtly force the subject against a competent player. 

Man-Bat is blind, but can echolocate.  Man-Bat knows not-blind people like transmitting information visually.  Man-Bat keeps a seeing-eye teammate around.  Man-Bat therefore suffers very little from being blind.  This is both perfectly reasonable in-character and an excellent method of playing around the blindness.  How do you, the GM, force Man-Bat to split off from all his teammates?  And how do you do so without making it blatantly obvious that it's for the purpose of forcing Man-Bat's blindness to hinder him? 

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A Silence field works pretty well.

 

There are social situations where one character cannot reasonably provide "described video" for another.

 

Which opponent should Man-Bat attack?  His sighted teammates do not know what features are perceived through echolocation, and probably fall into "the red costume" pretty easily.

 

Spectra fires different-coloured energy blasts.  By the time Man-Bat's seeing eye teammate tells him what blast she is using, it's probably too late for him to react.

 

Do his teammates not have work or family commitments?  They stay with Man-Bat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?   Man-bat is starting to seem less a teammate and more a DNPC.

 

Or, if it is no hindrance, then it is not complicating his life, so it is not worth points as a Complication, is it?

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A silence field works, but is extremely blatant. 

What sort of social situation prevents you from telling the blind man about the thing he can't see?  In an undercover situation you'd want clandestine communication channels anyways, wouldn't you? 

Why can't Man-Bat decide who to attack on his own, or delay to see who Teamo shoots/points at? 

Why does the color of the blast matter?  Doesn't he want to dodge all the energy blasts? 

Doesn't Man-Bat have work and family commitments too?  Wouldn't a blind person have accommodation made by his workplace and set up in his home?  Is Man-Bat expected to go on solo adventures while everyone else at the table twiddles their thumbs and waits to be permitted to play?  (Though, bluebooking solo adventures would be a great way to get the blindness to matter.)

In my experience, the majority of a character's 150 points of Disadvantages don't come up.  Should every character be forced to force their disads into the story or lose points? 

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Maybe I'm missing your point here.  What exactly are you arguing?  That a character who is blind (or has some other disadvantage) can do various things to compensate?  Yes, of course he can.  No one is claiming otherwise.  Are you arguing that anything a player character does to enable himself must always work perfectly?  That the GM can never throw any challenge at the character that he hasn't already figured out how to compensate for?  That if a blind character has a seeing-eye teammate, the GM must never incapacitate that teammate?

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

A silence field works, but is extremely blatant. 

And that’s a problem how? Doesn’t every Super  hero have at least one enemy that uses  a power that works against his or her weakness? Now if every agent and thug on the street has Silence grenades well that’s one thing. But to have Man-Bat face it once in awhile say facing Armadillo-cause that would make sense or Howler then that’s fine. I’ve myself had my ninja-Shadow fight against Brick (and there was no way for me to knock him out or against a mentalist (which I have no mental defense). Was it challenging? Yes, was it hard? Yes. And you know what? It’s also very memorable. 

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

In my experience, the majority of a character's 150 points of Disadvantages don't come up.  Should every character be forced to force their disads into the story or lose points? 

Oh I agree too. So that’s why I took advantage in 5th ed to up everyone’s base points and lowered their disadvantage points.

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

A silence field works, but is extremely blatant. 

What sort of social situation prevents you from telling the blind man about the thing he can't see?  In an undercover situation you'd want clandestine communication channels anyways, wouldn't you?

 

Blatant?  Man-Bat has sonar.  Is that a blatant attempt to circumvent an opponent with a sight-based Flash or Darkness Field, or is it an ability consistent with his character concept?

 

In that undercover situation, when the fellow previously seen only on video or in photographs, walks through the door, does the sighted character say "Hey, that's the guy we saw in the files we broke in and looked over last week?"  Even making perfect accommodations for blindness creates a form of distinctive features.  Hmmm...there's a blind Super in the team making life difficult for our organization, and suddenly we have this blind guy showing up with...the same number of friends/colleagues that blind Super has as teammates.  But that could only be a coincidence, right?

 

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

Why can't Man-Bat decide who to attack on his own, or delay to see who Teamo shoots/points at? 

Why does the color of the blast matter?  Doesn't he want to dodge all the energy blasts? 

Doesn't Man-Bat have work and family commitments too?  Wouldn't a blind person have accommodation made by his workplace and set up in his home?  Is Man-Bat expected to go on solo adventures while everyone else at the table twiddles their thumbs and waits to be permitted to play?  (Though, bluebooking solo adventures would be a great way to get the blindness to matter.)

In my experience, the majority of a character's 150 points of Disadvantages don't come up.  Should every character be forced to force their disads into the story or lose points? 

 

He can delay.  That is a disadvantage if his opponents now get to attack before him, instead of after him.  Who says he should attack the same guy the teammate attacks?  Now that Teammate pointed at one opponent, that opponent can abort to a defensive action while his teammate uses his held action.

 

I will bet that Man-Bat does not have workplace accommodations that assist with his superheroics.  Does he have a secret ID?  All the characters have personal lives - do the bad guys and other events all wait quietly while the team gets together so a teammate can be there to act as Man-Bat's eyes?

 

For that matter, does he never fly around a corner ahead of his teammates?

 

It's the GM's job to work disadvantages/complications into a story.   I view a character with Life Support (or Sonar) as paying points to say "I want to see situations in-game where my immunity to this environmental condition (unique sense) is advantageous, and makes my character shine".  By the same token, by taking points for a vulnerability to fire (or Blindness), he is saying "I want to see situations in-game where my character must deal with the extra challenges posed by his weakness to fire attacks (lack of sight)".

 

6e reduced required Complication points, and I think it was pretty clearly said that this was to allow only those items that were central to the character to be required to fill that quota of complications.

 

It is a hallmark of the rules, from 1e to present day, that a Disadvantage (Complication) which does not disadvantage the character (complicate his life) is not worth any points.

 

9 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Maybe I'm missing your point here.  What exactly are you arguing?  That a character who is blind (or has some other disadvantage) can do various things to compensate?  Yes, of course he can.  No one is claiming otherwise.  Are you arguing that anything a player character does to enable himself must always work perfectly?  That the GM can never throw any challenge at the character that he hasn't already figured out how to compensate for?  That if a blind character has a seeing-eye teammate, the GM must never incapacitate that teammate?

 

Or toss in a character who makes it tougher for that communication to happen?  A Silence field?  Loud noises (make a PER roll to hear what Teammate said)?  Ventriloquism?  Images/Illusions to take advantage of the fact that Man-Bat is a trained attack pet for the character who guides him?

 

I don't know that I have ever designed a situation specifically around a disadvantage/complication, but I do keep my eyes open for situations where they could reasonably crop up.  And they typically do crop up.  Maybe not as often as die rolls would dictate (no, that 8- Hunted does not attack every fourth game session), but they definitely crop up.  If there were not situations where they would crop up, they would not be worth points.

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I work in a factory and here’s some ideas for Man-Bat I thought of last night. Premise-Viper took over factory. Loud machines! There a whole bunch of noises and bells and whistles going on. Real world wise I’m not sure how much that affects echo location but I’m sure it got to. Buttons are color coded. What if man-bat needs to stop a line cause there’s a victim on it? What button is he going going to press? Or what if he needs to start it?  What if the “button” is on a computer screen?  Does echo location allow you to see through plexiglass? My line has machines which are maiming enclosed in Plexiglass so the agent could see through but man-bat couldn’t see them.  (Not all our lines are like this.) We have caustic chemicals in storage. Hopefully man-bat does hit one. How would he know what’s in it? Oh sidekick guy? Is he always following man-bat around.  Is he awake or KO’ed?  Or did go after the Nest Leader? Just a few thoughts. Oh and since I work at a chocolate factory we have a hot end (mounding) and cold end (wrapping and packing), IR man could be at a penalty to in some spots.

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15 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

And that’s a problem how? Doesn’t every Super  hero have at least one enemy that uses  a power that works against his or her weakness? Now if every agent and thug on the street has Silence grenades well that’s one thing. But to have Man-Bat face it once in awhile say facing Armadillo-cause that would make sense or Howler then that’s fine. I’ve myself had my ninja-Shadow fight against Brick (and there was no way for me to knock him out or against a mentalist (which I have no mental defense). Was it challenging? Yes, was it hard? Yes. And you know what? It’s also very memorable. 

No, not really.  Spider-Man for example went twenty years of publication before Venom showed up and gave him a recurring foe immune to his spider-sense. 

 

8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Blatant?  Man-Bat has sonar.  Is that a blatant attempt to circumvent an opponent with a sight-based Flash or Darkness Field, or is it an ability consistent with his character concept?

 

In that undercover situation, when the fellow previously seen only on video or in photographs, walks through the door, does the sighted character say "Hey, that's the guy we saw in the files we broke in and looked over last week?"  Even making perfect accommodations for blindness creates a form of distinctive features.  Hmmm...there's a blind Super in the team making life difficult for our organization, and suddenly we have this blind guy showing up with...the same number of friends/colleagues that blind Super has as teammates.  But that could only be a coincidence, right?

 

 

He can delay.  That is a disadvantage if his opponents now get to attack before him, instead of after him.  Who says he should attack the same guy the teammate attacks?  Now that Teammate pointed at one opponent, that opponent can abort to a defensive action while his teammate uses his held action.

 

I will bet that Man-Bat does not have workplace accommodations that assist with his superheroics.  Does he have a secret ID?  All the characters have personal lives - do the bad guys and other events all wait quietly while the team gets together so a teammate can be there to act as Man-Bat's eyes?

 

For that matter, does he never fly around a corner ahead of his teammates?

 

It's the GM's job to work disadvantages/complications into a story.   I view a character with Life Support (or Sonar) as paying points to say "I want to see situations in-game where my immunity to this environmental condition (unique sense) is advantageous, and makes my character shine".  By the same token, by taking points for a vulnerability to fire (or Blindness), he is saying "I want to see situations in-game where my character must deal with the extra challenges posed by his weakness to fire attacks (lack of sight)".

 

6e reduced required Complication points, and I think it was pretty clearly said that this was to allow only those items that were central to the character to be required to fill that quota of complications.

 

It is a hallmark of the rules, from 1e to present day, that a Disadvantage (Complication) which does not disadvantage the character (complicate his life) is not worth any points.

YOU picked sonar, and have now wonderfully checkmated yourself.  I specified an exotic sense. 

 

Yeah, that works. 

 

I don't see how any of this cares about Man-Bat's sightedness.  Yelling "Get the red one!" tells the red one to dodge just as well as pointing at him.  How does any character know who to attack? 

 

What relevance does this have?  I ask again, is Man-Bat getting solo play while the other players sit on their hands and wait for the GM to let them play the game they showed up to play? 

 

I ain't his player, I dunno.  Maybe he's the cautious type. 

 

Please retract your insult to - well basically everyone I've ever seen GM.  They did a damn fine job. 

I certainly can't speak for everyone, but that's not what I'm thinking most of the time I put a thing on my sheet.  If I wanted a particular thing to come up, I'd flag it explicitly.  Most things on the sheet are logical follow-ons as part of the fluff-crunch recursion. 

 

I am in agreement.  I think we all are, actually. 

 

Again, should every character be forced to force their disads into the story or lose points? 

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8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I work in a factory and here’s some ideas for Man-Bat I thought of last night. Premise-Viper took over factory. Loud machines! There a whole bunch of noises and bells and whistles going on. Real world wise I’m not sure how much that affects echo location but I’m sure it got to. Buttons are color coded. What if man-bat needs to stop a line cause there’s a victim on it? What button is he going going to press? Or what if he needs to start it?  What if the “button” is on a computer screen?  Does echo location allow you to see through plexiglass? My line has machines which are maiming enclosed in Plexiglass so the agent could see through but man-bat couldn’t see them.  (Not all our lines are like this.) We have caustic chemicals in storage. Hopefully man-bat does hit one. How would he know what’s in it? Oh sidekick guy? Is he always following man-bat around.  Is he awake or KO’ed?  Or did go after the Nest Leader? Just a few thoughts. Oh and since I work at a chocolate factory we have a hot end (mounding) and cold end (wrapping and packing), IR man could be at a penalty to in some spots.

Why does Man-Bat have to deal with every issue personally?  Why can't he yell "Egads, somebody [verb] that machine before [horrible thing]" and trade places with his nearest teammate? 

What sidekick?  Where the heck are you getting these things from?  I feel like I'm wading through a field of strawmen. 

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