Instant/Limited/Reaction Defenses

[FancyCreb]

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I've been looking for an answer to this for a bit now and haven't managed to turn anything up.

 

I'm imagining a simple power- Resistant Protection with a small number of Charges. Mechanically, what I would like to happen is that when a character is hit by an attack, they can decide whether or not to use one of the charges to apply their Protection to that attack. Using something like Trigger for this seems cumbersome, but I don't think merely making the Protection instant would accomplish what I'm going for. Is this kind of power readily supported by Hero?

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I think it'd be fine to just declare "This is how these Charges work".  No other Modifiers needed. 

 

On one hand, a normal Charge lasts for an entire Phase so if the user gets hit more than once in a Phase his use-Charges are disadvantageous. 

On the other hand, a normal Charge lasts for an entire Phase even if you don't get hit so if the user doesn't get hit in a phase his use-Charges are advantageous. 

I'd guesstimate that to be a wash. 

 

EDIT: And you'd want to define how it functioned on attacks you didn't know were coming.  Does it default to ON (whoops, street thug with a popgun just ate a charge) or to OFF (whoops, Baron Backstab just did badnasty things to you and you didn't get full DEF)? 

[dsatow]

I'd allow as is, mainly because the description is very disadvantageous to the character.  By the OP's original description, the target player decides when to apply the charge meaning the target needs to be aware of the attack.  If it uses a charge per attack, regardless of when that attack hits, that would be even more disadvantageous.  To be honest, given all the extra limitations as described, I might even allow him to increase the cost of the limitation by at least -1/2.

 

[IndianaJoe3]

2 hours ago, FancyCreb said:

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I've been looking for an answer to this for a bit now and haven't managed to turn anything up.

 

I'm imagining a simple power- Resistant Protection with a small number of Charges. Mechanically, what I would like to happen is that when a character is hit by an attack, they can decide whether or not to use one of the charges to apply their Protection to that attack. Using something like Trigger for this seems cumbersome, but I don't think merely making the Protection instant would accomplish what I'm going for. Is this kind of power readily supported by Hero?

 

I think the modifier you're looking for is Instant. The character would have to decide, before the attack roll is made, if they wanted to use the defense or not. If they use it, they get the defense against that particular attack. 

[FancyCreb]

1 hour ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I think the modifier you're looking for is Instant. The character would have to decide, before the attack roll is made, if they wanted to use the defense or not. If they use it, they get the defense against that particular attack. 

 

Something that isn't clear to me is how powers generally get used when you take them from persistent to instant like this. If I made a persistent power constant, I've have to spend a zero-phase action activating it, right? And if it's instant, isn't that still the case, except it only lasts for a single phase?

[dsatow]

5 hours ago, FancyCreb said:

 

Something that isn't clear to me is how powers generally get used when you take them from persistent to instant like this. If I made a persistent power constant, I've have to spend a zero-phase action activating it, right? And if it's instant, isn't that still the case, except it only lasts for a single phase?

 

That's generally a GM call but the usual answer is that the power lasts about a segment but never more than to the next phase of the character.

[CptPatriot]

It was my understanding that just putting charges on your Resistant Protection(RP) will only make the power last from the point of activation to your Dex on the next phase because RP is a Persistent power. To be able to make the power on demand needs Trigger.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

7 minutes ago, cptpatriot said:

It was my understanding that just putting charges on your Resistant Protection(RP) will only make the power last from the point of activation to your Dex on the next phase because RP is a Persistent power. To be able to make the power on demand needs Trigger.

But a Trigger construct that works for this is a +1 Advantage, partially offset by a -3/4 Limitation. 

Do you feel that "I may manually activate this defense.  If I do not, or cannot for reasons such as surprise, the defense does not activate." is worth more points than "This defense always functions."? 

[PhilFleischmann]

It's similar to another problem that's been discussed here before:  A continuous defense that only costs END in proportion to the amount of damage it blocks.  IOW, it costs no END as long as no one is attacking.  But each attack takes a certain amount of END to block - small attacks cost a little, big attacks cost a lot.  And there could also be some base level END cost per phase regardless of attacks.  This kind of arrangement is sometimes desired for a space ship's defensive shields.  So you can say things like, "Shields at 68%, captain."

[CptPatriot]

14 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

It's similar to another problem that's been discussed here before:  A continuous defense that only costs END in proportion to the amount of damage it blocks.  IOW, it costs no END as long as no one is attacking.  But each attack takes a certain amount of END to block - small attacks cost a little, big attacks cost a lot.  And there could also be some base level END cost per phase regardless of attacks.  This kind of arrangement is sometimes desired for a space ship's defensive shields.  So you can say things like, "Shields at 68%, captain."

 

That's in the APG, Damage Based Endurance Cost. You pay END initially to put it up and pay END based on the damage taken.

[CptPatriot]

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

But a Trigger construct that works for this is a +1 Advantage, partially offset by a -3/4 Limitation. 

Do you feel that "I may manually activate this defense.  If I do not, or cannot for reasons such as surprise, the defense does not activate." is worth more points than "This defense always functions."? 

 

True. So, buy the Resistant Defense and say that it is only on when "Triggered", figure that's worth a -1/4 since you need to be able to use a 0 phase action to trigger it.

[Cassandra]

On 2/22/2020 at 1:11 PM, FancyCreb said:

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I've been looking for an answer to this for a bit now and haven't managed to turn anything up.

 

I'm imagining a simple power- Resistant Protection with a small number of Charges. Mechanically, what I would like to happen is that when a character is hit by an attack, they can decide whether or not to use one of the charges to apply their Protection to that attack. Using something like Trigger for this seems cumbersome, but I don't think merely making the Protection instant would accomplish what I'm going for. Is this kind of power readily supported by Hero?

 

Ablative Armor, Captain America's Shield,  or Wonder Woman's Bracelets.

[Cassandra]

Oh, and Supergirl's heat vision on the TV show.

[FancyCreb]

17 minutes ago, Cassandra said:

 

Ablative Armor, Captain America's Shield,  or Wonder Woman's Bracelets.

 

I'm not unclear about what sort of special effect would represent this kind of power, I'm trying to figure out how to make it work mechanically.