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Invulnerability


Astromath

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Invulnerability, in effect, is equivalent to "campaign damage classes" x 4(or better), plus perhaps knockback resistance = campaign damage classes.   So if a typical character has defenses = campaign damage classes x 2, and no knockback resistance, then the "value" of invulnerability  is equal to campaign damage classes x 2, plus maybe 10-20 points of knockback resistance.   If campaign dc  = 12, then that's 24 points(x 2 for both physical and energy), plus 10-20 more points.  60-70 active points.  At least, to me, that seems like a reasonable costing, assuming that said invulnerability will typically have conditions that limit the utility(i.e., things and circumstances under which it doesn't work or is less effective).  

So any mechanics you want to use to simulate the fx should have an active cost in the ballpark of 50-80 points, imo.  It could be extra rPD/ED, it could be damage negation, it could be damage reduction ala the APG, it could be my invisible DCV idea(or perhaps some funky version of missile deflection), it could be a force wall, absorption, desolidification, or even some weird suppression field vs attacks.  But it's a highly useful ability, a "stop sign" ability, even, so the cost should be somewhat prohibitive.   

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On 4/23/2020 at 7:25 PM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

The problem is that, as Ragitsu mentions, attacks that fail due to desolid pass right through.  Even Cannot Pass Through Solid Objects doesn't help with this.  Which makes it pretty obvious what's going on, and is absolutely not the "Superman Effect". 

No this error is only because people aren’t understanding Hero system properly. Hero (afaik always) says that if you can’t find a Power that fits your concept, then you choose one closest to said concept add on the the appropriate advantage and limitations and then the Power then the GM says the Power works as thusly. So no, if you bought Desolid as Invulnerable, you aren’t still Desolid in the classic sense. 

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5 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

No this error is only because people aren’t understanding Hero system properly. Hero (afaik always) says that if you can’t find a Power that fits your concept, then you choose one closest to said concept add on the the appropriate advantage and limitations and then the Power then the GM says the Power works as thusly. So no, if you bought Desolid as Invulnerable, you aren’t still Desolid in the classic sense. 

Please demonstrate that Desolid is "closer" to "invulnerable" than [LARGENUMBER] rDEF Hardened x[LARGENUMBER], 100% Damage Reduction, and other such defense constructs. 

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The real problem is that people are assigning special effects to a power and absolutely refusing to let people change it.

 

There is no game mechanic for an attack passing through a target and hitting someone behind them.  That doesn't exist.  So why are people trying to assign that penalty to a desolid character?

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

Please demonstrate that Desolid is "closer" to "invulnerable" than [LARGENUMBER] rDEF Hardened x[LARGENUMBER], 100% Damage Reduction, and other such defense constructs. 

 

Not that I am a huge proponent of the construct but...

 

Desolid against campaign average attack - no damage

[LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against campaign average attack - no damage

 

 

Desolid against 2x campaign average attack - no damage

[LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 2x campaign average attack - no damage

 

Desolid against 10x campaign average attack - no damage

[LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 10x campaign average attack - some damage perhaps lots

 

Desolid against 100x campaign average attack - no damage

[LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 100x campaign average attack - wiped out, possibly dead

 

Now this is hero, there are places where LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE is going to be better and paces where it is going to be just as good.  However, against the core concept of piling up normal damage then Desolid has the edge because it has an absolute effect against that where other things do not.  Of course there are ways round it, that is the nature of the beast that is HERO.  It is however quite possible to say that a mechanic with an absolute effect is closer to accomplishing an absolute power than a mechanic that does not possess an absolute effect...

 

Doc

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2 minutes ago, massey said:

The real problem is that people are assigning special effects to a power and absolutely refusing to let people change it.

 

There is no game mechanic for an attack passing through a target and hitting someone behind them.  That doesn't exist.  So why are people trying to assign that penalty to a desolid character?

 

To be fair, what is coming into question is that Superman will often fly in front of a target and protect it by allowing machine gun bullets to fly off his chest.  If your invulnerability is defined as Desolid (not to pass through walls) can you do that kind of thing??

 

In my mind, yes, it would be part of the contract I made with the player when I allowed an invulnerability power using that mechanic.  Of course it provides the SFX of invulnerability.  I can see the argument against that, mechanically you might say that he cannot do that and so disallow the mechanic to be used for an invulnerability power.

 

Doc

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5 minutes ago, massey said:

The real problem is that people are assigning special effects to a power and absolutely refusing to let people change it.

 

There is no game mechanic for an attack passing through a target and hitting someone behind them.  That doesn't exist.  So why are people trying to assign that penalty to a desolid character?

Could you quote the post where "and hitting someone behind them" came up?  Because that's not my stance, my stance stops at "passing through".  I don't want to accuse you of making a strawman of my position if somebody else is actually arguing that position, but it really feels like a strawman when it's so critically different from my position. 

 

@Doc Democracy That doesn't happen at sensible damage scales.  "Whoops, Captain Invulnerable got blasted by the GhostBust5500, guess he wasn't invulnerable after all" does. 

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On 4/24/2020 at 12:25 AM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

The problem is that, as Ragitsu mentions, attacks that fail due to desolid pass right through.  Even Cannot Pass Through Solid Objects doesn't help with this.  Which makes it pretty obvious what's going on, and is absolutely not the "Superman Effect". 

 

This and Ragitsu talk about attacks passing through. It would be obvious that if you knew CPT Invulnerable was desolid, you could attack the person behind them.

 

Doc

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2 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

This and Ragitsu talk about attacks passing through. It would be obvious that if you knew CPT Invulnerable was desolid, you could attack the person behind them.

 

Doc

And could you please show me where in that post I made any mention at all of hitting somebody behind the target? 

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

 

 

@Doc Democracy That doesn't happen at sensible damage scales.  "Whoops, Captain Invulnerable got blasted by the GhostBust5500, guess he wasn't invulnerable after all" does. 

 

If you were going to allow LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE, which probably breaks campaign guidelines, why would you not allow LARGE NUMBER ATTACK which would damage CPT INVULNERABLE?

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

And could you please show me where in that post I made any mention at all of hitting somebody behind the target? 

 

I am trying not to split hairs.  Are you saying that if CPT INVULNERABLE (Desolid version) leapt in front of a DNPC to save them, the bullets would not hit the DNPC? 

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17 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

If you were going to allow LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE, which probably breaks campaign guidelines, why would you not allow LARGE NUMBER ATTACK which would damage CPT INVULNERABLE?

Firstly, if I'm allowing a character to have "invulnerability" I'm not going to "well actually no" them.  I'm going to let them be actually invulnerable.  Because I told them "This construct is invulnerability" and I'm not going to lie to a player about mechanics. 

Secondly because I might allow invulnerability Only/Not Against THING.  Likewise I might allow LARGE NUMBER ATTACK Only Against THING.  And I'd expect both of these to work.  If Captain Invulnerable-To-Fire can be hurt by Ghost Burning Flame, something is horribly wrong. 

 

I am leaving this thread at this point because I do not feel this discussion is civil anymore. It is just two sides failing to engage with each other.  There is no point in anyone continuing in my eyes. 

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11 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I am trying not to split hairs.  Are you saying that if CPT INVULNERABLE (Desolid version) leapt in front of a DNPC to save them, the bullets would not hit the DNPC? 

I will answer that,it is an antagonistic question for which I apologise.

 

You would not because you would not have allowed it in your game.  I am hoping though that you can see, for folk that have seen past any hard coded SFX, that this is a legitimate construct with different pros and cons to LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE.

 

(I see you have just responded, will finish before reading).

 

Doc

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The section on special effects is quite clear that the person purchasing the power can and should define the how the power works.  It also says that in some cases a power modification may be necessary to allow the power to work the way the person wants it to. 

 

In the description of cannot pass through solid objects it lists as an example a malleable body or similar abilities.  It also states that the character is still immune to damage.  So if I can purchase deslodification for a rubber based character to ignore damage there is no reason I cannot purchase for any other special effect.  If the character does not purchase affect solid on his attacks he cannot use them while invulnerable. 

 

If a character wanted to actually be invulnerable all the time I would require him to purchase the affects solid on all his attacks.  No advantage or limitation would be allowed to change that.   

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3 hours ago, massey said:

The real problem is that people are assigning special effects to a power and absolutely refusing to let people change it.

 

There is no game mechanic for an attack passing through a target and hitting someone behind them.  That doesn't exist.  So why are people trying to assign that penalty to a desolid character?

 

Indirect.

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For myself, I've always used extra defenses and KB protection to simulate invulnerability.

 

The main reason is because that's the way it's done in the source material. The word invulnerable is misused to describe characters because it's cooler that just saying the character is just exceptionally tough.

 

Let's take our classic example, Superman. He's immune to pretty much all conventional weapons and most unusual ones. For the most part, his villains tend to distract and divert him or use his weaknesses against him. But throughout his history, he's had foes that can go toe to toe with him such as Bizarro, Darkseid, Mongul and Doomsday. None of these villains use tricks, they just do enough damage to get through Superman's defenses.  If their attacks were to get in a square blow against the lesser JLA'ers such as Batman or Green Arrow the results would be ......unfortunate.

 

So when someone says they want their character to be "Invulnerable", I look at their defenses and give them a number that would effective allow them to take 95% of the campaign villains attacks with little to negligible damage. Usually I'll only allow this against a special effect but I've allowed it on physical or energy  attacks in general with the caveat of a fairly known weakness or vulnerability to something attached to the character. The player has got to trust me when I tell him that only a world beating threat or an agreed upon nemesis will breach his defenses and I as the GM have to be worthy of that trust.

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

Firstly, if I'm allowing a character to have "invulnerability" I'm not going to "well actually no" them.  I'm going to let them be actually invulnerable.  Because I told them "This construct is invulnerability" and I'm not going to lie to a player about mechanics. 

Secondly because I might allow invulnerability Only/Not Against THING.  Likewise I might allow LARGE NUMBER ATTACK Only Against THING.  And I'd expect both of these to work.  If Captain Invulnerable-To-Fire can be hurt by Ghost Burning Flame, something is horribly wrong. 

I'd say pretty much this. The contract that bounds players and gm around invulnerability should hold regarless if it is built with Desolid, Resistant Protection, Damage Negation or something else.

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

If a character wanted to actually be invulnerable all the time I would require him to purchase the affects solid on all his attacks.  No advantage or limitation would be allowed to change that.   

While I have no issues with using Desolid as the base for invulnerability, that part bothers me. It becomes a (slightly more) cumbersome built and these days, I prefer simpler constructs.

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13 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

To be fair, what is coming into question is that Superman will often fly in front of a target and protect it by allowing machine gun bullets to fly off his chest.  If your invulnerability is defined as Desolid (not to pass through walls) can you do that kind of thing??

 

Yes. "Intangibility" is a common SFX of Desolid, but nothing in the rules requires it.

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One thing to keep in mind about this is although it will work it is not something going to be that effective.   First of all it is actually fairly easy to bypass.  Any mental power and one reasonably common special effect will ignore it.  Second anything that takes affects desolid will also ignore it.  While there have been a couple of complaints about that particular advantage things like this are the reason for its existence.  Another thing that works against this is presence attacks.  If a player wanted to use that I would make sure to point all thought things out first, and tell them straight up that those things will exist in the campaign.  This is going to mean that the character is either going to be a glass cannon, or is still going to need to purchase at least some stats and defenses.

 

The special effect rule also cuts both way.  I have no problem with a character using desolidification to simulate being tough enough to withstand any attack.  That character still has to breath and would be affected by other environmental affects.  If the character wants to be immune to those as well I would require them to purchase appropriate life support. 

 

Affects solid is a +2 advantage and increases the active cost of what it is used on.  You can of course purchase 0 in addition to affects solid, but that also increases the active cost.  Most campaigns also have some sort of limit on the active cost power purchased.  This means that the invulnerable character is going to be doing almost no damage.  Assuming a 60 point cap on active cost would mean that the character is only going to be doing about 4d6 for damage.   Even if there are no campaign limits on cost it is still incredibly expensive.  By my calculations purchasing this on a 60 STR character is going to cost 269 points, assuming you have no attack powers besides STR, but including appropriate LS. 

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

Please demonstrate that Desolid is "closer" to "invulnerable" than [LARGENUMBER] rDEF Hardened x[LARGENUMBER], 100% Damage Reduction, and other such defense constructs. 

Don’t need to as that wasn’t the point of my post. So let’s look at the Character Creation Cards. The CCC uses the Desolid method. Therefore Desolid wouldn’t let you pass through objects or attacks pass through you either because you’re using the Desolid part to avoid damage only.  Is it visible? Yes but not because you’re fuzzy like most Desolid characters are depicted but as soon as an attack hits you, the attack bounces off. In essence the FM has created a new power and states how it works for the game. So how’s that any different than buying campaign limit approach? You still need GM approval (some don’t like a character to max out in more than one category and you need to know what the limits are and does the group uses hard limits or soft limits? What then? I would think that a GM with soft limits should still say that if you buy X amount then you’re invulnerable no matter the dice. And the 100% Damage Reduction last I heard, it was a, not uncommon, house rule. Is it still? Is it in one of the Advance Rulebooks? Is the GM using it? Here the Desolid method has “legal” standing as it’s been written up and used. Naturally the importance of that fact varies greatly among the people.  Personally the best version is what the GM likes and thinks is fair. 

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One more point I’d like to make. With the “Technically if bought as Desolid...”. We wonder why (and many a complaint has been made) that the rules have gotten too in-depth and complex. Well there is one of the answers. How many rules now have to deal with the “technically” question?

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1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

One more point I’d like to make. With the “Technically if bought as Desolid...”. We wonder why (and many a complaint has been made) that the rules have gotten too in-depth and complex. Well there is one of the answers. How many rules now have to deal with the “technically” question?

 

The Desolid approach always deals with the "technically conditions", the extra defenses never needs anything .

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12 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

The Desolid approach always deals with the "technically conditions", the extra defenses never needs anything .

Are you sure? Like I said not every campaign uses hard limits. And as a matter of perspective  I don’t see it as any more a problem than say Flight -only touching ground to simulate super running.

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