Netzilla

Re: Oihid

I don't know about the part I bolded' date=' if the character has to go to some effort to get around it, and it increases the value of the story, then it is a good thing, and the limitation has done its job.[/quote']

 

No doubt. Of course it might get a little old around the hundreth time. Like I said, it's all about frequency.

 

I have in my current group two characters with OIHID and one with OIF on the majority of there powers, it has yet to be a problem

 

Sure. Our group has had similar characters until recently (one moved and the other's currently taking his turn as GM). It was never a problem for us. Of course, neither were the Multiform character, Elemental Control build, the several Multipower chars and even the couple VPPs (all things I've seen labled abusive way more often than OIHID). The GM checks each one to start, isn't shy about saying "no" to things he doesn't like, and is perfectly willing to deal with problems that only show up after play has started. All of us who take turns GMing do that. I suspect your group probably works with a similar dynamic (don't know about the rotating GM bit though).

 

A lot of these 'abuse' threads would go a lot smoother if folks would accept the idea that the GM saying "no" can be a good thing and will head off a lot of these problems before they start. Why use a page long house rule to prevent munchkinism when a simple "no" can do the job in 2 seconds?

 

Eh, getting soapboxy. It must be my bed time.

Re: Oihid

I have also allowed that person to sit out a couple of adventures and bring in a backup character. We all as a group tend to have a couple of characters that we switch off with (with one primary' date=' obviously). If you have a character that is hydrophobic to the point of catatonia (eg total psychlim), it would make a lot of sense for that person to stay at home when taking on the Remoray and the Eel Gang at their underwater HQ. As far as I'm concerned that IS the effect. Now, yes, this example is a disad and not a lim, but the principle is the same.[/quote']

 

This is a little different than what I was talking about. In this case, the character knows that water will be involved and thus sits it out. However, if the player decides he's going to sit the game out or use a different character because he somehow got wind of the GM's plot involving the local dam being burst, that's a very different situation (and actually a symptom of a couple larger problems).

 

Then there's the issue of how often the player manages to finagle an in-game reason for the character to never be around water. If it's a regular occurance, there's a problem.

 

Basically it's a GM/player trust issue more than anything else. Of course, that covers a lot of points in this debate.

Re: Oihid

The same applies to OIHID except obviously the magnitude is different. It's not as valuable as a 0 control cost cosmic vpp and it doesn't cause nearly as many headaches. However, it's still valuable (relative to straight characters) and still causes some headaches (relative to straight characters).

1. Not every player is going to want OIHID for their character, nor does it come close to being designed as an 'Every-Hero' construct like your 0 Control-Cost VPP.

2. A 0-Control Cost VPP does not in any way limit the character. An OIHID does.

3. A 0-CC VPP will slow the game way down as players compute adjustments to their power set.

4. A 0-CC VPP will reward players who know how to 'work the system' way more than OIHID does.

These things combined with the fact that a 0-CC VPP is exponentioanlly harder to adjudicate than an OIHID falsifies your analogy.

Thorn is at roughly 5%. I was just wondering about your philosophy because you were making a comment about how it would be ok if someone with OIHID spends those 75 extra points on background stuff. It seems that if he had already spend 10% of his points on background stuff that he would only have to spend about 10 or so of the 75 to be in balance with your default standard.

First, 10% is not my default standard. 10% is my minimum. Second, you're attempting to relate two things that don't directly relate. That's why I said Thorn wouldn't pass even without having most of his points wrapped up in one Limitation. They are two distinct requirements. If you're only making the minimum contribution to background abilities plus putting most of your powers under one Limitation, you're pushing your limit on two requirements. Obviously that will increase the likelihood of your character being sent back for revision.

If you're going to use only PC standard characters, then we'll be left with a sample size of only 6, the Champions. Virtually every published character is a NPC, so not allowing characters like Stalwart would make it almost impossible to discuss this issue.

Actually, I'm limiting out characters appearing in GM-only materials (like CKC and the GM's Vault sections of other books). Other characters are more likely to (and should) be seen as examples by the players. These can be taken as examples of starting (the Champions, Shugoshin, Kinetic, Meteor Man III etc.) or experienced/high-powered characters. They're placed in the common sections of the materials to act as examples for the players.

2) What do you mean by worth enough?

A -1/4 Lim can be worth enough if it covers enough points. It takes fewer points on a -1/2 Lim and even fewer on a -3/4 Lim. Basically, it’s a comparison on the value of the Lim (-1/4, -1/2, -3/4, etc) to how many points of the character are covered by it. So, 75% at -1/4 may be considered enough by some GMs. So might 60% at -1/2, 50% at -3/4; just to illustrate the thinking involved. I guess you could roll 1 & 2 together to some extent, but I prefer keeping them as separate steps. Keep in mind that just failing 1 & 2 alone won't be enough me to send a character back. I can't vouch for other GMs.

3) Stalwart is the head of the FBI hostage rescue team. Obviously he'll be in heroic ID most of the time and won't come close to the 1/3 threshold that you seem to be holding. It'll only come up if he's caught with his pants down.

Such is the nature of OIHID. I don't see that as a problem.

4) Not elite agent, decent agent. 15 Str, 12 Dex, 18 Con, 3 SPD with WF small arms but no martial arts and no equipment other than what he can pick up. I don't think that qualifies as being elite.

Ah, for some reason I thought you'd written 'elite'. My goof. In that case he'd fail on Step 4.

5) Don't know. He doesn't work with other supers most of the time, but he's fairly tough with 50 Str, 20 Dex, 35 Con, 60 pt multipower with 6 attack slots, flight, invisibility, tunnelling, and lots of enhanced senses including X-Ray vision. What keeps him in check is that his Str, Dex, and Con have 'no figured characterisics', which limits his toughness tremendously.

Well, I've been working under the assumption that you're using him as an example of a PC submission. Therefore, it's presumed he'd be working with a group.

6) His psych lims and background indicate that he would grab a gun and enter the scenario anyway if you as GM would allow him to pick up a gun he hasn't paid for. He probably wouldn't armed with his bare hands. He has 20 pts overconfident, but his description seems to clearly imply that this overconfidence is only if he's in the armor.

Step six doesn't cover weather the character would want to up and leave; it's about the player. Basically it's a question of how much I, as GM, trust the player of the proposed PC. If I could expect him to play those Dissads as written, that would pass this step. If the player's going to pout, switch characters or just not participate, then we've got a problem. Of course, I'm not likely to allow a player like that into my game for very long anyway, but the step is there for the sake of completeness.

So, at this point we know he fails steps 1 & 4 and passes 2 & 3. That puts him on thin ice. Steps 5 & 6 are harder to say as we don't have hypothetical players. If either of those failed, there's a good chance he'd be sent back. If there were anything else I objected to in his write-up (doesn't directly relate to this discussion so I'm not looking it up right now), he'd definitely get sent back. In any case, a potential problem character is taken care of during development without the use of paradigm-challenging house rules.

Hopefully I gave you enough info.

All you gave me was a points ratio. I've stated many times that I need more info than that to make a call.

They're what we have available. We only have 6 examples of PC types, and they're not very well built for the most part.

We have a few more examples than that if you go by what I explained above. As to their builds, I have dislikes of a few of them as well, but not for any of the reasons that have come up in this thread (as I recall; I don't remember how most are set up for background abilities).

Unlikely that even a Dr. Strange type would have gestures/incantations on his Stats or skills.

Depends on how many of his spells pump up his stats or give him additional skills. Neither is out of concept for a super-mage. In any case, you could still end up with a very powerful character without taking stats or skills out of normal human range.

An entangle automatically gets all of a character's limbs. A grab gets 2 limbs of the attacker's choice. No adjudication needed, unless for some reason you use hit locations for grabs.

I don't see anything in the description of grab that says the attacker gets to choose which two limbs they've grabbed. It just says that it affects 2 of the targets limbs (usually the arms parenthetically). So, are you going to rule that every time someone with Gestures, a Focus or Restrainable is grabbed, it will automatically be their arms that are pinned? 'Usually' implies to me that there's a certain amount of the time that is not the case. How often that is gets left up to the GM to decide.

Incantations can be stopped at any time. The OIHID with a magic word can only be stopped before the change. After the change, the character's stats and powers are for the most part, persistent.

Incantations can only be stopped while their being said. With a 0-phase power, you'll have to have a held action. (Never mind constant powers with Incantations only to start). OIHID, taking a Full Phase, can be stopped in the middle of the process. And Entangles still don't stop either. Also, are you going to rule that grabs against someone with Incantations always affect the head/mouth?

Yes. As I said before, a -1/4 that saves 2 pts on HRRP is going to bother me much less than a -1/4 on 300 of a character's points. Frequency does matter.

Sorry, by Frequency, I was meaning how many characters do this, not points ratios. Anyway, as I've said before, I need more than just points ratios to go on.

If the character does spend all 150 extra points in background skills, he'll still be as powerful in combat as the rest of his team (assuming the limitation doesn't crop up), but he'll be dominating in non-combat with 150 or more skills, perks, and talents. He's still unbalancing, but in the non-combat arena instead of the combat.

You're assuming that all 150 points in background abilities will come up in every non-combat situation (or at least a significant portion). That's not necessarily the case. I've seen characters with some skills, talents or powers that come up maybe once or twice in a campaign. Heck, one of my current characters has PS: Soldier and KS: U.S. Army which have never come up in 3 years. He's also got a power that he's only used once in that time frame. I knew these wouldn't come up often, but bought them because they fit the concept. Some background abilities are like that.

Besides, the character you're suggesting still fails steps 1-3 right off the bat. 4 & 5 are possible to pass at this point. Not likely on that many points, I'll grant you, but possible. If either one failed or #6 failed, he'd be sent back for revision. The character is dealt with right out of the gate with no house rules required.

If the character does manage to make it past steps 4-6, he's still on my 'observe closely' list. Basically, I'd give the player a reserved approval, letting them know exactly where I was uncomfortable with the build. I'd also tell them that if I determine that he's out of balance after seeing him in play, a revision will be called for before he can be used again. Consider it a play-test if you will.

Again, the character's dealt with; no house rules required.

It depends. Some limitations such as OAF occur within the normal course of play. Others like many Disads or OIHID or many Conditionals must be specifically planned for by the GM to make them happen. A party of 6 people with a bunch of these would bog the game down if the GM properly enforces them, so in practice a bunch of stuff slides.

So, do you agree that different GM's have different tolerance levels and thus no one set frequency can apply across all campaigns?

Disads don't give you as many points back as sweeping limitations such as OIHID. Letting a disad slide won't make the character any more powerful than a regular character.

I don't agree with that at all. If you're character gets 20 points from a Vulnerability that never comes up in play, that's effectively 20 free points. Other characters are being penalized for taking those points while yours isn't. If he's go 2 20-pt Psyche Lims that the GM doesn't enforce, that's still 40 free points that other characters are being penalized for. Uneven enforcement of anything is unfair to the players, no matter what the Lim or Dissad is or if the points involved are 20, 40 or 60.

Letting OIHID slide would. In practice, I don't even see the 25% frequency occur for many disads. For example, 6 players with 2 8- hunteds apiece would logically result in 3 hunteds showing up over the course of the average scenario. This never happens. What ends up happening is that a GM might not have the hunters show up, but retcon that the hunter was observing the player or doing some other nefarious stuff in the meantime.

How does retconning watching Hunters every 4 games take less GM work than planning for an OIHID once every 4 games? You've still got to adjudicate the effects of those Hunters' off-screen activities.

A player with OIHID, 2 8- Hunteds, 8- DNPC would average one of these occuring per scenario if you use the rulebook guidelines.

So long as this character's -1/4 Lim comes up as often as other character's -1/4 Lims and his 8- Dissads come up as often as other character's 8- dissads, who's being cheated here?

Defender has 'no figured characteristics' on his savings. As I've said before, this sharply limits the benefits of OIF. I probably wouldn't allow Defender if his primaries didn't have that limitation.

 

Nighthawk's gadgets are fairly easily dealt with if you don't want them around. They're only 6 Def at best, which means that an EB with 12d6 EB could spread +4 OCV and specifically target the utility belt if he wanted to. And if captured, his gadgets get taken away.

What does that have to do with me challenging this statement of yours, "Often foci are placed on only a power here and a power there. On a small fraction of a character's points." That is the statement of yours that I was responding to. I brought up Defender and Nighhawk as counter-examples of that statement. Basically, I'm challenging your contention that people use OIHID as a sweeping Limitation significantly more often than they use OIF as a sweeping Limitation.

OIHID would fill that role anyway, whether it was a limitation or a disad.

Okay, so you don't want to do away with OIHID entirely, you just want to change it into a Dissad. The thing is, you still need to convince me that this is necessary. You need to show proof that OIHID is more abusable than other Limitations, gets abused more often, is harder to spot by an alert GM and is harder to adjudicate.

Re: Oihid

Go go' date=' Netzilla![/quote']

 

 

Glad you responded, I was itching to. I get your comments on "too sweeping" and I don't think Gary is.

 

You're doing great, and it spares me writing all this.

 

That being said, you don't think you're going to change Gary's mind, right?

 

Changing Gary's mind isn't really my goal. I've been around the internet (and this is especially true for usenet) long enough to know that changing people's minds via the 'net is a difficult proposition at best.

 

I can understand where Gary's concern comes from, even if I don't share that concern. I'm just wanting to give Gary and others some counterpoints to think about. I think that some of Gary's arguments raise questions that should be addressed and I'm trying to point these out. I'm also trying to illustrate how a lot of these concerns can be alievated without resorting to extensive house rules that challenge certain paradigms of the game system.

 

At the end of the day, Gary can do whatever he wants with his campaign (same as anyone else).

 

PS - let me add - to me it's a simple bottom line at this piont - OIHID can be abused. Whether it's really being abused in people's campaigns, relative to other -1/4 lims, is hard to say.

 

Well, I'm sure it is being abused in some campaigns and not in others. I'm of the oppinion that an alert & active GM can stop those abuses (sometimes at character creation).

 

But the HERO rulebook is quite clear on the matter of OIHID usage and makes specific suggestions that it can be used too broadly. There's really just nothing to see here.

 

But what else would we do if we weren't busy building mountains out of mole hills?

Re: Oihid

IIRC' date=' the origin of OIHID was characters like Thor who seem to have a focus, but the focus doesn't act like one in the comics (never taken away, etc.). Certainly, the old "Don Blake/Thor" didn't deserve OAF on all the powers gained when he shifted into Thor Form, notwithstanding he would change back if separated from the hammer for a minute.[/quote']

 

Sure, the old Thor, Captain Marvel (DC) and some others fit in my opinion.

 

As for GL, is his ring an OIF? When is it successfully taken away? He seems able, at least recently, to control it from a distance, and I seem to recall him summoning the ring to him. I can't see it for GL specifically, but a similar character (whose ring can't be removed by force) could possibly take OIHID on the basis that putting on the ring constitutes taking on his ID. The ring would need to be realy obvious so he can't just wear gloves over it, hide it in a pocket, etc., but if there were some issues preventing constant access to the ring, OIHID might be a good fit.

 

I was just trying to point out that Focus and OIHID shouldn't be on the same power. You'll chose whichever you feel fits the character best. There's just too much overlap between the two Lims to justify putting both on the same power.

Re: Oihid

We're just quibbling at this point. We both agree that there is a problem with a certain amount of their points in one overarching limitation. The only thing we're quibbling about now is what percentage constitutes 'too sweeping'

Okay, I don't seem to be getting my point across well enough. My point is that distinction between 'sweeping' and 'too sweeping' is not just percentage. Other factors have to be taken into account before I'll label something 'too sweeping'.

As I said before, giving everyone the same option doesn't make it fair. An example would be a Cosmic VPP if the control cost was 0. Even if everyone has access to it and spent the rest of their points on background skills, it still wouldn't be balanced or fair.

Well, it's fair to the players (not the GM but I'll get to that) but probably not balanced. What you've got there is a power that almost every player would want for their character. Heck, you've almost made it an every-hero power. It's fair for the players because they all have access to it. It's unfair to the GM because adjudicating one cosmic VPP can be enough of a headache. Because of those factors, I don't think your analogy stands.

How many pts in background skills do you require? Not that I thought you would approve him, but just pointing him out as an example of a character with the vast majority of his points with OIHID.

I'd prefer a minimum of about 10% or so of points in background abilities (not just skills). However, I'm not sure that's really germane to this discussion. In any case, I'm certainly not planning on starting any threads stating that I think characters who only spend 5% of their points on background abilities are unfair and unbalanced and that we need a rule requiring players to spend at least 10% of their points on background abilities.

An example of an official hero with OIHID is Stalwart. He is 489 pts of which 134 pts are not subject to OIHID and 365 pts are subject to OIHID. He has 57 pts worth of perks and noncombat skills. The rest of the 134 pts are in 3 3 pt CSLs and enough stats to make him a decent agent level.

Stalwart is a hero. And he has roughly 75% of his points (after factoring in the OIHID savings) subject to OIHID.

Stalwart is a GM-only character. He may be a hero, but he's an NPC and thus built to NPC, not PC standards. I don't think he'd meant to be an example of how PCs should be built. Otherwise his write-up wouldn't be in the GM's Vault.

With that said, just for the sake of argument, let's take him through the steps:

1. Does this character have all of their Powers bought with the same Limitation?

It looks like it, but I don't have the write-up in front of me.

1a. If 'no', are enough Powers bought that way to make the GM uncomfortable?

It certainly looks like it. Fail on Step 1.

2. Is that Limitation worth -1/2 or more?

No.

2a. If 'no', is the Limitation worth enough to make the GM uncomfortable?

IMO, no. Pass on Step 2.

3. Is the Limitation likely to occur 1/3 of the time or more?

No.

3a. If 'no', is the Limitation frequent enough to make the GM uncomfortable?

IMO no. Pass on Step 3.

4. Is the character significantly underpowered when the Limitation is in play?

If he's good enough to count as an elite agent while suffering for his OIHID, I'd say no. Pass on Step 4.

5. Is the character significantly overpowered when the Limitation is not in play?

If the other characters are built with the same base points & experience and have achieved similar points savings, then no. Pass on Step 4.

6. Is the player likely to avoid playing this character when the Limitation would apply?

Unknowable since we don't have a hypothetical player. So we won't take this one into consideration.

In my analysis, he only fails Step 1, so I'd say he passes overall.

A significant number who have OIHID at all have it on a majority of their points (Obviously most characters posted on these boards don't have OIHID at all). As an example off the top of my head, there's Hyperman posted by Hyperman in another thread who saves about 70 pts on a 350 character.

So I'm guessing he clocks in at over 70-75% of his points limited by OIHID (I haven't done the math). If so, he goes through the steps I just did for Stalwart. Without more info on his writeup, I can't say if he'd pass for my campaign or not.

Athenian, posted by Oddhat, has it on slightly more than half of her points and saves 40-45 pts on a 350 character using this limitation.

At only slightly more than half, Oddhat's probably not going to need to go through the steps unless something else about the character were to jump out at me.

And the 2 official characters that I managed to find both had it on the majority of their points. They're not all 80+% of their points, but the worst offenders such as Thorn are significantly over 80%.

But they're both designed to NPC, not PC standards. Therefore, you can't take them as examples of how PCs should be built.

Gestures and Restrainable are easy to deal with since grabs and entangles are fairly common. And the rulebook does suggest that Gestures and Incantations should primarily be for heroic campaigns.

Well, I've seen Gestures mainly on super-mage type characters in Superhero campaigns. Not on all of them, but several, including some official write-ups (Stingray comes to mind, but it's only on some of her powers). Even so, you could still build a Dr. Strange type character that required Gestures or Incantations on 70% or more of their Powers/Points.

To stop a one-handed Gesture, you'd have to grab both arms. How do you fairly adjudicate that the grab didn't end up on an arm and leg or both legs or an arm and neck or something other than both arms? How is OIHID harder to deal with than this?

With Incantations, you've got to stop them speaking. Your grab would have to involve their head (specifically their mouth) which runs into the same problems as one-handed gestures. In addition, Entangles don't normally stop someone from speaking. So, how is this easier to deal with than an OIHID that requires a magic word?

Also, most of these limitations and disads do not apply to the majority of a character's points. They're not as sweeping as OIHID or many conditionals.

So, you're saying that frequency of the occurrence is a significant factor in the problem with OIHID and Conditional Powers? I'm a little dubious on that reasoning. I'm also not convinced the problem comes up quite as often as you imply it does.

A blanket no even if he spends the 150 extra points on background skills, talents, and perks?

It wasn't a blanket 'no'. It was a 'no' based on the character violating steps 1-4. Actually, since you were basing this on the book example (which assumed the character being overpowered), it actually violated 5 out of 6 steps. I'd say the 'no' was fully justified.

Now, I'm assuming that you're changing the example by suggesting that the 150 extra points were spent on background abilities. In that case, the character gets re-evaluated. In the re-evaluation, it's still going to fail steps 1, 2 & 3 (half of the process). Steps 4 & 5 will depend on how likely those background abilities are to come up in play and so it's harder to say pass/fail on that one. If some only come up rarely, but a few come up enough to keep the balance between under/over-powered, then the build would pass those steps. Step 6 is still an unknown quantity.

I actually don't like any threshold. I dislike the limitations where one character is significantly more powerful than his comrades most of the time but worthless some of the time. For solo campaigns that's fine, but not when there are other people involved.

The character's being over/under powered has nothing to do with what I asked. What I asked was: What how often can a Limitation be enforced and still be fair to the GM (i.e. not strain him too much or take too much time away from other players)?

It's a sliding scale. I would never allow a 14- hunted or DNPC for example, in a 6 party group. It takes too much airtime away from the rest of the players. In a solo campaign, 11- or 14- would be perfectly ok. And yes, 6 characters each with 11- or 14- hunteds and DNPCs would suffer 'disadvantage burnout'.

So why is a 25% frequency okay for Disadvantages but not for Limitations? Is a 25% frequency bad for some Limitations but not others? If so, why?

Ok, I apologize at taking offense if that wasn't your intent. And I apologize if my posting style gave you offense.

No sweat. I'm not going to take offence to anything said over the internet unless the person is obviously being deliberately offensive. I was just trying to point out that some of your statements come close to 'one-true-wayism'. You haven't actually crossed that line; just come close. I freely admit that I may have stepped on that line here and there. I'm trying to be careful of that, though.

Ok. I've been responding to a lot of people in this thread, so I apologize if I mixed you up with someone else.

No sweat. I've lost track of who said what to whom in internet discussions often enough. I figured that was what was happening here.

There are a few reasons.

 

1) Foci are easier to deal with.

In what ways? Is this true for all Focus Lims or only certain values of Focus?

2) Often foci are placed on only a power here and a power there. On a small fraction of a character's points. It's not worth junking the foci system for the rare situations where foci is placed on the majority of a character's points. This is unlike OIHID where it's rarely not on the majority of a character's points.

Two of the iconic PC-example Champions characters (Defender and Nighthawk) have OIF on significant portions of their points. Defender saves well over 100 points and Nighthawk clocks in at about 35 (these would be a lot higher if I based their OIF savings off the powers' Active Costs rather than their MP slot costs). I know others do as well, but I'd have to look them up to be certain which ones.

3) Foci are deeply ingrained into the Hero psyche. Far more so than OIHID.

That's certainly debatable. Besides which, even if the Focus Lim is more integral to the game system, OIHID is a significant part of the genre that the game tries to emulate. OIHID fills a very valuable role in that regard.

Re: Oihid

Hmmm' date=' let me think. Magic rings, guns, necklaces, etc. Do you think everyone notices Green Lantern because of his ring? I always thought it was the flashy spandex and the mask, but I might be wrong.[/quote']

 

Well, the rules for OIHID specifically warn against making something both a Focus and OIHID. As for Green Lantern, while he may have a Secret ID (in some incarnations) and an OIF (ring), I don't see anything about him that would warrent OIHID. Heck, he violates OIHID by taking less than a phase to change and having no way to stop the change w/out taking the ring (which you already got the OIF bonus for). Maybe some extra PRE based on the nifty green costume, but not his GL powers.

 

As for power armor characters, some could be built as OIHID, some with OIF (not a big fan of that), some with -1/4 Restrainable or some with the Vehicle rules (be very careful of balance here). However, I doubt there's many (if any) cases where it would be appropriate to combine even two of these in one char.

Re: Oihid

"Sweeping" in the context of that paragraph is very vague. It could be anywhere from the majority of the character's powers (possibly less than 1/4 of his points if he has 1/2 his points in powers) to almost all of his points (Up to 80% or more of his points).

Actually, the paragraph only mentions Powers. It never once mentions Points. However, since the paragraph also talks about the example build being helpless when under the effects of the Lim, it seems to me that it's assuming that most of this character's Points are tied up in Powers. Considering the fact that 'sweeping' is generally applied to 'across the board' type situations, that suggests that they're starting from a point at which a considerable majority (at least 'most') of the character's points are covered by the Lim. At that point, they apply the modifier 'too', which generally indicates 'more of' or 'excessive' amounts. It could mean that they're only referring to characters in which over, say 85% of the character's points are covered, but I really think they're talking about more than just points percentages. Besides which, it still doesn't say to outright reject such a build. It warns that you should examine such builds carefully.

Thorn in CKC has it on roughly 80% of his points. Various characters posted on these boards also have it on roughly that many points. I don't want to single anyone out, but I can give you examples if you wish.

So? What does that have to do with the wiggle room occurring between 'most' and 'all' or my statement that I need more to go on than just an 80% of points ratio in rendering a judgment as a GM? Or was this not meant to be responsive to the paragraph of mine you quoted right before it?

This example was actually in 4th edition before Steve took over. So Steve actually had nothing to do with it.

You're right. That's my goof. Still, I'm not convinced that it was a random selection of examples. In any case, it's not a point worth debating over as I already said I was letting it go.

A character built straight would also like lots of background skills and talents. If you want one character to have more points than another, you can just give him the extra points with the restriction that he must spend them on background skills/talents. Also, your argument applies to 150 extra points from a -1/2 limitation, so it's not just an OIHID argument.

That's a viable option, so long as you give all characters the same option. Of course, they also all have the same option of building their characters with Limitations and Frameworks and using the points savings on background skills/talents. Seems like 6 of 1 and a half-dozen of the other to me.

I'm assuming those points aren't spent in Tiddlywinks 84-. Let's take an official published character and see how he would meet your guidelines.

 

Thorn from CKC has 16 pts in background skills and 46 pts without OIHID. Would you ok him?

If he were submitted to me as a PC? No, and I'm a little surprised you'd ask that question. What have I said that made you think I might? Heck, I probably wouldn't approve him without the OIHID because of having so few points in background skills. You're treading into combat-monster territory there. In any case, Thorn's a villain NPC and not subject to the same building rules as a PC anyway.

Just look at many characters posted to these boards. And let's stick to our sample character Thorn who doesn't have it on 46 of his 350 pts. This is an official published character.

It's an official published NPC villain. What makes you think Thorn has to adhere to, or be considered representative of, the standards for building PCs?

As for characters posted to these boards, are you contending that a significant portion of the ones that are posted as PC write-ups make use of OIHID on 80+% of their points? I somehow doubt it but you're welcome to prove it to me.

OIHID isn't singled out. It's exactly the same situation as the character with Only at Night on his powers except the magnitude is less. I'm merely pointing out that the OIHID character has the same opportunity to duck his limitation as the example character on page 194-195 if he really wanted to.

Okay. I figured OIHID was your main bone of contention since it's what you titled the thread, your first post was all about suggesting we get rid of it altogether and it's the main thing that's been argued about in this thread.

Sould we also get rid of Gestures & Incantations since not all GMs faithfully enforce those? How about Restrainable? Your arguments can still be applied to most, if not all Limitations and quite a few Dissads. Why don't we just get rid of all of them rather than just OIHID and Conditional Powers?

Would you allow the 'only at night' character if he promised to use his 50 pt version in daytime?

No, since that would violate at least questions 1-4 of my 'fairness check steps'. Did you ever have any doubt about that?

He still runs into the same problem that the book warns against; powerful at sometimes and weak other times. It's the same with OIHID except the frequency and magnitude is somewhat less.

Quite possibly. Of course, I've already repeatedly stated that a character built with 80+% (actually my threshold would be lower, but 80+% was your example) of their points in OIHID is already going under the microscope.

You're the one who brought up the 25% number.

By pointing out that the 'Conditional Powers Guidelines' table can serve as a possible guideline for OIHID frequency. I've also suggested other numbers. I've actually been trying to find out what percentage you think wouldn't be too great a strain on the GM. So, since you already seemed to reject 20% as not frequent enough and 25% (from what you say below) as being too frequent, is there a frequency you consider fair to the GM?

One problem with enforcing it at the 25% number is the 'limitation burnout' syndrome that I brought up earlier.

So, is it your contention that any Limitation that would apply 25% or more of the time should be stricken from the rules? What about Disadvantages that come up 25% or more of the time (8- roll)? Do those suffer from 'Disadvantage Burnout'? What does that mean for Dissads that show up 63% (11-) or even 90% (14-) of the time?

I'd say your just as guilty of this as me.

If I've given you the impression that I thought my experiences were more valid than yours or that the way you play your game is wrong, I apologize. My sole intent in this thread is to support the idea that OIHID isn't broken. It may be subject to abuse, but not any more so than any other Limitation. That's all I've tried to do here.

Accusing me of 'lack of imagination',

Actually, what I said was "If the only ways you can think of to limit OIHID are combat-related, your lack of imagination is the problem, not OIHID." (msg 229) Were you seriously unable to come up with any examples that didn't involve combat? Still, since you took personal offence to that statement, I apologize for it.

putting words in my mouth, etc.

When did I ever put words in your mouth? I honestly don't recall it.

Also, where did I ever advocate "unfair character building"?

Actually, I wasn't saying you were an advocate of unfair character building. I was saying that you've all but accused us of being advocates of unfair character building. In this very message you seem to imply that I would approve of a character like Thorn as a PC. Maybe you didn't mean to imply that, but it does look that way to me.

Anyway, I acknowledged in the last message that accusing us of playing the game wrong might not be your intent. You just come across that way some times. You really don't need to take that as a personal insult. It's just an observation of your posting style and not a comment on your personal character.

People have been compaining about this. You can do a search of old threads on these boards.

Well, I've been a registered member of these boards for about a year now (and lurked a good half-year or so before), been a member of the Champions Mailing List since the mid-90s and have participated on rec.games.frp.super-heroes since before then. I've also been a player of this game since the mid-80s and this is the first time I've come across a discussion of how OIHID needs to be scrapped. If it were that big of a problem, I'm sure I'd have seen it before now. Perhaps you can give me a few thread titles to search for so I can observe for myself just how common a complaint it is.

I already gave a suggested good fix. Stats bought through foci must take the no figured characteristics limitation. It's amazing how you ignored what I've said several times already.

I haven't ignored it. You and I haven't really been discussing the Focus Limitation. You may have been discussing it with someone else in this thread, but I'm not sure. In any case, why do you suggest keeping the Focus Limitation (with a fairly minor modification) while simultaneously suggesting we throw out OIHID and replace it with a Physical Limitation. Why can't OIHID be fixed with a similar fairly minor house rule? Why a complete paradigm shift that blurs the lines between Limitations and Disadvantages for the sake of OIHID?

Re: Oihid

I'd say a limitation placed on 300+ of a character's 350 pts would qualify as "too sweeping". What's your definition?

First, are you conceding that the paragraph in question does, indeed, talk about a subset of sweeping limitations rather than all sweeping lims? You claimed that it didn't and I want to make we're as close to being on the same page as possible.

Now, on the definition of "too sweeping". The term "sweeping", by itself, implies to me a Lim that already covers a significant majority (or 'most') of the character's powers. Otherwise, it wouldn't be "sweeping". So, pure points percentages is not enough to distinguish between "sweeping" and "too sweeping". That's why an example with additional qualifications is included.

As to what criteria I do use to define as "too sweeping", that's going to depend on the situation (campaign type & power level, players involved, etc), so there's not one pat answer I can give you. However, I'll attempt to outline my thinking on such things as I go through the rest of this message.

1) 'all' and 'most' is just quibbling when you're talking about characters with 300+ of their points with the limitation.

Well, just to be clear, 'most' is only >50% of powers/points. All is 100%. There's a lot of wiggle room in between. What you're talking about is well over 80% of the character's points and is certainly something that would send up warning flags to me as a GM. I'm pretty sure I've said something to that effect before. In any case, this, by itself, is not enough for me to automatically send the character back for revision for the reasons I've outlined above plus what I'll go into below.

2) They picked a random example. They could've picked a -1/4 lim, or even a -2 lim. The -1/2 by itself means nothing unless there is an explanation printed to explain why it was chosen. Until then, my guess is just as good as yours.

Actually, it's not a "they", it's Steve Long that picked the example. Given his clarifications in the FAQ and on the 'Rules Questions' board, it's pretty clear to me that Steve Long did not pick his examples randomly, but rather to be as representative as possible. Now, there is a chance that he did pick it randomly, but I doubt it. Still, neither of us has an iron clad case on this, so I'll let it go.

3) The paragraph also mentions something you left out. Fairness to other players. Why would a 500 vs a 350 be considered 'unfair' whereas a 425 vs 350 be considered 'fair'?

Actually, I didn't leave it out as it was covered by points 4 & 5 in my list of steps for checking the fairness of Limitations. Because I did not explicitly mention it in this paragraph does not mean I missed it or ignored it. It just wasn't germane to the point of that particular paragraph of mine.

As to your question, it again depends on circumstances. Not all balance is about points. Do I know this player & can I trust him to not take advantage of the "extra" points? Have the other players built their characters with comparable levels of savings? Etc. Those extra 75 points could be taken up with just background skills & talents that are unlikely to come up in the game but add more flavor. They might even be put into rarely used powers that might only come up once or twice in a campaign.

It also equally warns against a character terrifically powerful when the lim doesn't apply and worthless when the lim does apply.

Which did get covered in step 5 of my 'fairness checklist'.

1) Again, minor quibbling with 'all' and 'most'.

Not at all. You'll notice that Step 1 had a substep: "If 'no', are enough Powers bought that way to make the GM uncomfortable?" That's to account for the situation in which the GM wishes to set the limit below "all". I thought that was straightforward.

2+3) I disagree that -1/2 must be the threshold. 75 extra points is huge.

Steps 2 & 3 contained substeps equivalent to the substep in Step 1. In addition, weather or not 75 extra points is huge depends on how those 75 points are spent (as mentioned above).

4+5) For most OIHID that I've seen, absolutely. What about in your campaign?

Not in mine. But then, builds placing 80+% of their points under OIHID seem pretty rare to me. In most of the games I've run and played in, the players built their characters with a pretty even mix of stats, skills & powers; so I doubt many (if any) reached 50% of their points.

6) It depends on what type of scenarios the GM sets up. The player doesn't usually know whether or not he'll be ambushed in normal ID. And if it's a situation where he can't change IDs and knows it beforehand, he's just as likely to not play the character as the person with 'Only in Darkness' to play his character in daylight. After all, if the character has accidental change into normal ID in unhallowed ground and the adventure will take place in a evil temple, the character would logically not show up and run a replacement character for this adventure.

That's not been my experience at all. I'd suggest that players who do things like that are powergaming at the least and more likely pulling munchkin tricks. I, personally, and several of the groups I've played with now and in the past have played our characters in disadvantageous situations; sometimes deliberately. Overcoming adversity is, after all, part of the fun.

So, why is the GM allowing this player to switch characters every time one of their Limitations would come up? If the player does this kind of thing repeatedly, why doesn't the GM talk to the player about their behavior and let them know it's unacceptable? If the player refuses to comply by the campaign standards, why do they keep getting asked back?

This is not a problem with OIHID. This is a problem with the GM & Players. I could swear I've pointed this out before (as have others).

The same thing would apply to the person with 'Only in Darkness'. The GM could easily set up an adventure vs him in daylight where he doesn't have a choice in whether he's involved or not. And in cases where he knows beforehand, he could choose to run a 50 pt character or not show up.

So, why, exactly is the GM allowing this? What exactly is it that's preventing the GM from "going back to the player and suggesting they revise the build", which I suggested last message and in other messages before? Why does this mean that OIHID needs to be singled out and changed when it can just as easily apply to almost any other Limitation or Disadvantage?

Do your characters with OIHID have it crop up 1/4 of the time? It seems from the postings of most people on this thread that it crops up 5-10% of the time. What's your personal experience?

I haven't run a hard statistical analysis of exactly how often this particular Lim shows up. I do know that it's been often & severely enough that the points saved were certainly paid for. In fact, I know I've said that before.

In any case, why does there have to be one set number? Why can't it vary from campaign to campaign so long as all the players feel they're being treated fairly? If you're uncomfortable with 5-10% feel free to up the frequency (as I've repeatedly suggested before). It's your campaign. Why are others wrong for keeping theirs at 5-10%?

Did I ever say that my experiences were more valuable than yours? Please point to a post where I said it. It's up to each individual GM to run his world.

You're the one telling all of us that OIHID is broken. When we explain to you why we think its not, and cite our experiences with it, you continue to insist that it is broken in spite of our explanations. You've repeatedly accused myself and others of misreading the rules, "screwing with the players", advocating unfair character building and the like. While it may not be your intent, you certainly come across as trying to tell us that we're playing the game wrong.

I don't really know how you can speak for 'hundreds' of other people though.

If OIHID were the problem you think it is, then I think quite a few more people would be complaining. After all, people don't seem shy about enumerating the Hero System's other faults. So, with a fan base measured in the thousands, only a handful (I'm not sure it's even in double-digits) of which complain about OIHID, I'd say its safe to say that there's at least hundreds who think it's fine as is.

Incidentally, the biggest problem with sweeping limitations that I've found are powered armor/focus users who don't put 'no figured characteristics' on their stats bought through the focus. The epitome of terrifyingly powerful most of the time and extremely weak some of the time.

So why is the GM allowing this? Do you suggest that this means that the Focus rules need to be scrapped altogether (like you do with OIHID)?

Re: Oihid

The paragraph says nothing of the sort. It simply warns against Power Limitations that are too sweeping and then uses Only Works in Darkness as an example.

 

There is no mention at all of "certain types" of sweeping limitations. The paragraph is a warning against people who are enormously powerful when the limit isn't active and worthless when the limit is active.

Yes it does and I will explain why: The first sentence says to "watch out for" limitations that are "too sweeping". That's a qualifier of sweeping Limitations in general. In other words, not all sweeping limitations are bad, only those that go overboard (i.e. a subset or 'type' of sweeping Limitation).

Now, let's examine the rest of that paragraph:

Going back to the fist sentence, "watch out for" is not "ban". It simply means that the GM should examine such builds closely. That is entirely consistent with everything I've posted in this thread and I'd bet that it's consistent with the postings of everyone you've argued against so far.

The paragraph then goes on to provide an example using Only Works in Darkness on all the character's powers. Two things here: First, 'all' is not 'most'. Second, this is a limitation specifically mentioned on the Limited Powers table. By its definition in that table, along with the 'Conditional Powers Table' on the facing page, defines its value as -1/2 and its frequency as roughly 1/3 the time. If this warning had been meant to apply to lesser Limitations, why would not one of the -1/4 Limited Power examples have been used? Perhaps its because while a -1/4 LP on (to use your number) 300 CPs would net a "gain" of around 75 points. On the other hand a -1/2 LP on 300 CPs would net a "gain" of around 150 points. That's about twice the points savings and a far bigger power differential (425 points vs. 500) when compared to the 350 point character. In addition, a -1/2 Lim would be occurring in about 1/3 of the time as opposed to 1/4.

Finally, the example is continued by warning against a very specific player behavior: A player who won't play the character when the Limitation would apply. Why make this specification if it doesn't matter?

So, what can we conclude form all this? We can conclude that Limitations need to be monitored by the GM for fairness. So, you could easily apply the following steps:

1. Does this character have all of their Powers bought with the same Limitation?

    If 'no', are enough Powers bought that way to make the GM uncomfortable?

2. Is that Limitation worth -1/2 or more?

    If 'no', is the Limitation worth enough to make the GM uncomfortable?

3. Is the Limitation likely to occur 1/3 of the time or more?

    If 'no', is the Limitation frequent enough to make the GM uncomfortable?

4. Is the character significantly underpowered when the Limitation is in play?

5. Is the character significantly overpowered when the Limitation is not in play?

6. Is the player likely to avoid playing this character when the Limitation would apply?

If the answer is 'yes' to enough of these questions to make the GM uncomfortable (and that level will vary from GM to GM), then the GM is fully justified in going back to the player and suggesting they revise the build.

Now, can you tell me how any of that means that OIHID should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a Physical Limitation? As I recall, that was your original proposal and you haven't retracted it yet (though you have gone on to suggest things like Multiform), so I assume you still think that's a good idea.

As a complete side note to the above, the 'Conditional Powers Table' mentioned above makes for a perfectly good guideline on how often OIHID should affect the player (and I wish I'd remembered it was there). As a -1/4 Lim, that would be about 1/4 of the time that they change IDs. With three examples, you have enough to last you probably 8 to 12 games, which I would think would be enough time to come up with at least 3 more. It still doesn’t seem overly burdensome to the GM in my opinion.

On another note, from what I've observed from your posts, it would seem that you've run into problems with OIHID. My guess would be that it's some combination of the players not playing the Lim and the GM not calling them on it. That is your experience and I'll not deny that it does happen in some games. On the other hand, your experience does not in any way invalidate the experiences of the hundreds of us who have seen OIHID played and adjudicated properly. So, explain to me why we should adopt your point of view on OIHID when it runs counter to our own experiences? What makes your experiences more valuable than ours?

Re: Oihid

You seem to feel the "spirit" of the rules should be the major factor in whether something should be allowed. Then why are you ok with OIHID on the majority of a character's points when page 194-195 strongly suggests that limitations that are too sweeping shouldn't be allowed?

Well, taking the whole paragraph in it's entirety, it answers the question for you. You'll note that it's not a warning against all "sweeping" limitations. Instead it is a warning of certain types of "sweeping" lims: characters that will be useless a large portion of the time (daylight is far more frequent than intense electromagnetic fields) or players only playing that character in favorable conditions. If neither is likely to be the case with the OIHID character, I don't see the problem.

Again, so long as the GM shows a little foresight and willingness to enforce the Lim, there is no problem.

In any case, that a character can take OIHID on 300 CPs and it might be abusive, that doesn't mean OIHID needs to be chucked and replaced with a Physical Lim. It just means you need to be careful of what OIHID builds you allow. Just like anything else in the Hero System.

Re: Oihid

At this point I fear you are correct.

Hey! I'm serious, damnit! This is a matter of life or death. There can be no more important debate than what we are discussing here! The fate of the very world, nay, universe hangs upon the outcome of this debate! Surely this is obvious to everyone.

Re: Oihid

Side rant

 

Going along with your side rant, IMO the english language does have

 

'one or the other but not both' it is called or

 

What the language lacks is:

 

Choose from this list, you must choose one of, but may choose as many as you want, which is why some people use the and/or construct

I can't agree with that. Take the following:

"We will have peas or carrots for dinner."

Is this statement true if peas are served? Yes.

Is this statement true if carrots are served? Yes.

Is this statement true if both are served? Yes.

For an alternative, consider asking someone this:

"Do you want cake or ice cream?"

Is it illogical for them to ask, "Can I have both?" If "or" only ever ment 'this or that but not both' there would generally not be such ambiguity.

It's a pet peeve I picked up from my grammar professors at university.

In any case, if we're to continue this, we should probably take it to PM as this thread's convoluted enough as it is.

Re: Oihid

Well' date=' to be fair to Gary, the qualifier was for an [i']intense[/i] EM field. I doubt your average TV or PC qualifies. I suppose you could apply the "pacemaker" test to it. If the EM field is strong enough to interfere with a pacemaker, it's strong enought to interfere with the character's powers. That may be a bit too much though. I'm not sure as I don't know how many things affect pacemakers.

Okay, to answer my own question, I found the following on a quick web search:

From: http://www.affacts.org/Procedures/pacemaker.html

Many patients have concerns about using electronic devices if they have a pacemaker. Most electronic are safe to operate if you have a pacemaker. Safe devices include:

 

Safe devices include: Microwave, televisions, radios, CD players, computers, video games, fax machines, toasters, ovens, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners, electric blankets, hair dryers, electric shavers, lawn mowers, snow blowers, and leaf blowers.

 

Cellular phones: when using a cell phone you should keep at least 6 inches between the phone and the pacemaker; you should listen to the phone in opposite ear to where the pacemaker was placed; and you should carry the phone in a pocket on the opposite side of the body from where the pacemaker was placed.

 

Power Tools: power tools are safe to use, but all appliances should be properly grounded.

 

Automobiles: it is safe to operate an automobile, but you should avoid the distributor or spark plug wires of a running car.

 

Things to avoid: certain types of strong electrical and magnetic devices can potentially interfere with the function of your pacemaker. Before being exposed to the following places or devices, be sure to check with your doctor:

 

MRI: the magnet in an MRI scanner may interfere with your pacemaker

Surgery: certain types of surgical tools may interfere with your pacemaker, be sure to tell your doctor that you have a pacemaker before your surgery.

power plants

large generators

arc welding equipment

large magnets

dielectric heaters

TV or radio transmitting towers

electrical power lines

That actually doesn't sound like too unreasonable a standard now that I've seen the list. YMMV.

Re: Oihid

...same as the sentence structure above' date=' the sentence can also be read with the and INSTEAD of the or (So a more concervative GM can decide that you need a full phase plus to say a magic word, etc)[/quote']

 

See, things like this is why I've never liked the 'and/or' construction. It never adds clairity as there's just too many ways to interpret it. Plus, in most logical constructs, the 'and' option is contained within the bounds of 'or'. What the English language seems to lack is a simple conjoiner that means 'one or the other but not both'. Sorry, not dissagreeing with you, just a side rant.

 

As for the Secret ID thing, I was just random thinking, but I think it depends on how often the GM is going to put the player into situations where he can not change without blowing his ID...

 

Wouldn't work for me. May work for someone else. Fair enough.

Re: Oihid

Depends on what you consider "an EM field" for purposes of a Disad. The typical American home or office is full of EM-emitting devices.

Well, to be fair to Gary, the qualifier was for an intense EM field. I doubt your average TV or PC qualifies. I suppose you could apply the "pacemaker" test to it. If the EM field is strong enough to interfere with a pacemaker, it's strong enought to interfere with the character's powers. That may be a bit too much though. I'm not sure as I don't know how many things affect pacemakers.

Re: Oihid

*) The word OR, to me anyways indicates that it might actualy take less time IF there is another way to prevent it. The way it is writen it is the GM's choice to use either the and or the or so assuming a generous GM chooses the or the sentence reads:

 

"the change must take at least a Full Phase, if not longer, or there must be other dificulties or ways to prevent him from changing Identidies"

 

By this reading, a character with a secret ID might qualify as it is assumed he would not be willing to power up around people who did not know (The Secret ID would be a difficulty or way to prevent him from changing Identidies)

Well, the 'and' is definately in the description, so I don't agree with this interpretation, but I can see how it could be come to. Unfortunately, Steve Long was unhelpfully non-committal on this when I asked him:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24744

Also, since the character has to have 2 separate identities to qualify for OIHID in the first place, I'm not sure that a Secret ID would be enough of a deterrant to allow a less than 1 Full Phase Activation.

Re: Oihid

If you're giving people magical powers of persuasion without a high persuasion roll' date=' then they don't need powers at all. In fact, they don't even need powers at all. My sarcasm meter at work.[/quote']

 

Who said anything about magical powers of persuasion? That's your straw man. Are you claiming that it's against the genre for the hero to succeed at offering himself up as a hostage in place of some or all of the other hostages? Besides, what are the consequences of his failure? Are they severe enough that he shouldn't even try?

 

Every character with FF has force wall in your game?

 

Actually, I asked you if FF character did. Are you actually suggesting a character with no other powers?

 

As for EB, there's no way he can blast everyone before at least some crooks unload. Especially since the crooks have held actions. And if he fires and doesn't take every single crook out (especially since you mentioned that some of them may have superpowers or special equipment), he's responsible for multiple hostage deaths. Real heroic. Although I guess in your campaign you give everyone without OIHID magical powers to automatically hit and take out anyone they shoot at.

 

Never heard of spreading an EB? Also, the crooks don't expect a super and are being taken by surprise, remember? All the hero has to do is wait for the bank robbers to designate who's going to be watching the hostages and gather the hostages into one place (so they're easy to keep an eye on). At that point, a super who has a 12d6 EB and 8 OCV can spread their EB over 4 hexes (8 meters or ~26 feet) to hit the 3 or 4 gunmen (if that many) guarding the hostages. 8 OCV vs. a 4 DCV (less if the gunmen are caught by surprise) needs to roll a 15- (95%) on each hit (roughly 81% to hit all 4). Pretty good odds. With 8 dice remaining, that's an average of 8 Body and 28 Stun. Subtract 2 normal PD and another 8 for flak vests (if they're really well equipped). That's 0 Body and 18 Stun. That's more than enough to Con-stun an exceptional person, and a good chance of 0-1" of knockback, putting the hostage guards well out of position.

 

Is there a chance the EB hero will blow it? Yes. However, OIHID character doesn't even have that option. Last time I checked, even a small chance (which this is well better than) was greater than no chance.

 

By playing in the game, every player has given the GM implicit permission to screw with their character in certain ways. OIHID is no different.

 

Except that it gives a specific way to do this by denying the character access to their powers. In essence, it makes the GM's job easier for this purpose.

 

It's easy to set up a difficult or no win situation for any character type since the GM has full control over the scenarion and scenary.

 

It's just easier to do when certain Limitations and Disadvantages come into play. That's what Limitations and Disadvantages do. Really, your argument could be applied to any Limitation or Dissad.

 

This specific situation would be the same for a super martial artist who gets no limitation on his powers. His only option would be to presence attack the normals or try and knock them away as well.

 

He's also likely faster than the Pseudo-Colossus and probably just as strong (if not stronger) than P-C is in his human form, and thus at least as likely to be able to knock several people out of the way at once. He's actually more likely to succeed as he's got a higher OCV and is thus better at sweeping & move-bys.

 

Or if a brick without OIHID was more than a full move away from the car. Or a mentallist without area effect powers, although the mentallist can presumably order one person in the crowd to leave. None of them get a cost break on their powers.

 

In the first case, you're changing the scenario. You're admitting that this scenario is made harder by the character not having access to his powers due to the OIHID. After all, a 50 STR brick can leap 10 hexes (roughly 65 feet). So, you'd have to move the bus stop pretty far away to keep him from being able to move-through the car by leaping into it. Heck, if he pushed his strength, he could cover 2 more hexes (about 13 more feet). With only a 6 OCV -4 for range, he's still attacking a 0 DCV target and has a 13- to hit. If he has any HtH levels or a higher than 18 Dex, he's odds of hitting are even better. Are you actually suggesting moving the victims nearly 100 feet from the character to start this off?

 

As for the mentalist, he's still got at least the same options as P-C and likely more due to having access to whatever powers he's got. He can probably telepathically warn at least one person there, getting the message across faster and with more surety than a Presence Attack would, giving the people at the bus stop a greater chance of running. Plus, he can do it from even further away.

 

And again it's a "screw with the player" type situation. A situation that's easily setup against any character type regardless of whether they have OIHID or not.

 

This argument could also be made for any Limitation or Disadvantage. Is it "screwing with the player" to have a scenario in which Superman has to deal with both hostages and kryptonite (which saps his powers)? Is it "screwing with the player" to have Tony Stark have to deal with a hostage situation without his armor? Is it "screwing with the player" to have the Thing have to try to rescue someone from a burning building with unstable flooring? Is it "screwing with the player" when the Green Goblin gives Spider Man the choice between saving a truckload of hostages or Gwen Stacy?

 

That's 3 Limitations and Dissads that your argument can be applied to just off the top of my head, plus one scenario that works no matter what Lims and Dissads the character has. If your argument is so broad as to include everything it's not a very useful argument and it certainly doesn't show how OIHID (specifically) is "broken".

 

This is no different than a character with Secret ID who must run away from the area first to change into costume. And I doubt that touring places with EM fields occurs very often for this character.

 

Says who? Does this character expect to run into villainy every second of every day? If so, they've got Psyche Lims as bad as Batman's if not worse, and Batman is known for being nutty and obsessive even among supers. Besides which, does this character never walk near a power station? Or, perhaps, he manages to avoid every single transmitting tower in the world?

 

If the villain has hostages, then most power sets would be useless. Especially if the villain has a high dex or a held action. The character would surrender in this situation and wait until a better opportunity arises.

 

This would be no different from a martial artist who would have to surrender or watch hostages die. Or an energy projector who couldn't guarantee taking down the villain in one shot and can only protect one person in the crowd. Or even a brick without OIHID who can throw himself in front of at most one single person. Everyone else in the area is SOL if the brick decides to fight.

 

Yep, without OIHID, the character has the option to wait for the opportunity for surprise. The character with OIHID doesn't have that option. They either have to give up surprise or go it without their powers. Sounds like he's got fewer options to me.

 

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, almost no characters take Act roll on the majority of their points. They usually take it on just their attacks, not on their defenses, movements, and stats. And if they did take it on everything, there will be enough rolls over the course of a scenario that some of them will fail.

 

The same thing can be done with OIHID. So what? All I was using an Activation Roll for was comparing frequency of how often this Limitation should be taken advantage of.

 

It's the attitude like yours that having your limitation occur 5% of the time to justify a 20% overall cost savings that led to this thread in the first place.

 

Never mind that I even offered to double or triple that frequency. So, by your argument, can I assume that quadrupling it to 20% of the time would be fair? That's 1 out of every 5 changes of ID (which seems a little high to me, but it's your campaign). So, I've still given you enough scenarios to cover 15 changes changes of ID, giving you plenty of time to come up with others. Still doesn't sound like too much of a strain for most GMs. If I can come up with 3 scenarios off the top of my head, surely you can come up with at least as many over 10 to 15 weeks of weekly gaming sessions.

Is it legal to have an OIHID Limitation that takes less than a Full Phase to change forms if there is an obvious/easy enough way to stop the character changing IDs? If so, are there any guidelines on how easy stopping the change should be? Would not being able to change in an Intense Electromagnetic field work? How about someone who can't change without placing their fingers on their magical amulet?

I understand it would be campaign specific, but a rough guideline would be very helpful.

Thanks.

Re: Oihid

Then why were you emphasizing about "book legal"? And the impression I got was that you thought an OIHID had to have both.

Because, up until now your main example of how OIHID is "broken" was an unmodified version of Colossus. I was emphasizing the fact that an unmodified Colossus doesn't meat the book legal requirements for OIHID. You ended up modifying Colossus, so I had though you'd gotten that.

in response to bank-robbery scenario:

1) He probably couldn't talk the crooks into letting all the extra hostages go. Not without making this situation completely contrived unless he had extraordinary Persuasion skill.

Yes, because we've never seen anything like that in the source material. The good guy never manages to talk the bad guys into taking him hostage instead of the helpless innocents. You got me there. I can't think of a single example of that ever happening. Sorry, perhaps I should turn down my sarcasm meter.

2) This scenario would probably be difficult for a normal character without OIHID. A character who depends on Force Fields for example, would get the other patrons shot if he turned on a Force Field. Yes the guy with FF can abort to FF, but it'll hurt if the robbers are super-powered or super-equipped.

Is FF his only power? I suppose he doesn't have Force Wall or an Energy Blast he can spread? That would seem like a rather strange character build. Kind of a one-trick pony, eh? If not, depending on how he's built, he may well be able to do all three at once and all while taking the bank robbers by surprise. That will dramatically change the situation. Susan Richards, a FF based character could do it with ease. Heck, even the Human Torch & Reed Richards could pull it off because they can gain the element of surprise.

Pseudo-Colossus can't do anything like that because all his superhuman powers are tied up in OIHID. If FF-boy had all his powers tied up in OIHID, he'd in the same boat as Pseudo-Colossus.

in response to the thrown car scenario:

This falls into the category of GM screwing with the player. If the GM wanted to screw the player, it wouldn't matter if the character had OIHID or not. He could simply start the scenario with the player out of movement range of the crowd at the start of the scenario and no large objects around. This is functionally the same as your scenario.

First, the player consciously chose to take OIHID on their character. That gives the GM permission to "screw with" the character in certain ways. If the player didn't want their character to be placed in situations in which they can't use their powers, they shouldn't have taken OIHID.

Second, I gave examples of how, even in his normal form, Pseudo-Colossus has a chance of saving the people at the bus stop. The chance isn't as good, risk-free or easy as if he'd had access to his powers, but that's why OIHID is a limitation. In any case, no, the character & player haven't been made as helpless in this scenario as you seem to think.

Third, this kind of situation has happened to Colossus in the comic books. If he'd had to take a Full-Phase Action to change IDs his younger sister would have died in his first ever appearance in the X-Men as she got run over by a runaway tractor. In fact, many supers get placed in this kind of situation. Feel free to change thrown car to simply a driver losing control of his vehicle. How many times has that occurred in the comics/movies/books/tv/etc. Even characters without super powers have managed to save the day in this kind of situation. It's just not as easy as if you were capable of catching the car.

in response to hydro-electric power plant dam:

No, he can't change in an EM field. He can change form in a safe location and then move to the location to fight.

Debatable as it depends on the special effects. However, you're assuming he starts away from the dam. If he's touring the facility at the time, he's got problems.

in response to other people being threatened:

Only in that case. Otherwise he aborts.

Certainly, and a super-hero's primary job is not to protect the innocent. Never do we ever see the situation in which a superhero has to make a hard choice involving the saving of innocent lives. Okay, the sarcasm meter's still set a bit high. However, it illustrates my point that innocents being in danger is a very common genre trope. In fact, it's the reason why superheroes exist.

It's even fairly common for a superhero to not be able to save everyone at least a couple times in their career because they aren't fast/strong/skilled/smart enough. This is just a variation on that genre trope.

I'll point out that the character could have both Full Phase, and Can't Change in EM Field. This from what I understand meets your definition of "spirit" of the rules.

It does a lot better, yes. You'll also note that all the scenarios I mentioned now get combined onto the same character. Since this is only a -1/4 Limitation (same value as Activation 15-), it stands to reason that the frequency of things like this happening should be around 5%. So, 3 scenarios should easily do you for roughly 60 occurrences of Pseudo-Colossus changing IDs. Heck, you could even double the frequency (equivalent of 14-; -1/2) and still not strain the GM's imagination. Even tripling it (nearly a 13-; -3/4) would be 15% of the time or about 21 total ID changes and not much of a strain.

Re: Oihid

Assume a Colossus where he takes a full phase to change.

Okay.

You're reading the rules wrong. OIHID says specifically at least Full Phase and/or other ways of preventing the change.

Which would be why I said, in message 242, "The book requires a minimum of a Full Phase Action (which Colossus violates) and/or a way of preventing the change (which Colossus also violates). " Note the 'and/or'. No, I'm not reading the rules wrong. You even quoted that part.

So Colossus could be book legal if the player declares that he can't change in Intense Electromagnetic Fields. Whether the GM allows it is a different story.

Okay, to make sure I'm understanding you properly, you're suggesting a Colossus-like character who either takes a Full Phase Action to change IDs or cannot change in Intense Electromagnetic fields, but not both. Is that correct?

Assuming the above is the case, then the character is meeting the bare minimum requirements for OIHID. This, as a GM, warns me that this may not be a truly limiting build of OIHID, so I then look at things like the character's SPD, will the character be spending a fair amount of their time in civilian ID, etc. In the case of this pseudo-Colossus (assuming the only change is minimum compliance with OIHID), he's not faster SPD than campaign average and he does have a life outside of superheroing, so he's cool on that front. Also, he doesn't have things like highly-reliable Danger Sense, super-perception or the such.

At this point, I'd talk with the player, pointing out that they are only meeting the bare minimum of OIHID and that if I feel that they're abusing this construction, I'll require them to rework the character.

Now, how to mess with the character:

1. Pseudo-Colossus is in a bank. He fails his Perception Roll, and does not notice the bank robbers taking up strategic positions within the bank (not out of character as he's probably not any more perceptive than the bank guards). By the time he's aware of what's going on, they're already in a position to shoot hostages if they meet resistance. In order to use any of his powers, he has to change forms. If he does change forms, they may well start shooting bank patrons. If his invulnerability didn't have OIHID, he could volunteer himself as a hostage, knowing he'd be in no danger and try to talk the bank robbers into letting the other patrons go. Unfortunately, that is now a far more risky proposition (even if he aborts he still has to take a Full Phase's worth of attacks and if the robbers are super-powered or super-equipped, it's going to hurt). Similarly, if his strength weren't OIHID, he could wait until the robbers ordered everyone to sit/lay down and use the teller counter to sweep the whole room (remember; comic book physics), surprising everyone and taking out anyone still standing. [This works for either version.]

2. Grond is rampaging through downtown. Pseudo-Colossus is out dropping off his mail in his normal ID. Before anyone knows what's going on, a car comes hurtling from out of the sky (thrown by Grond from several blocks away), it will squash a group of people waiting at a bus stop. Since Pseudo-Colossus cannot do anything else while changing IDs (such as diving into the path of the falling car to catch it), he has to rely on saving them without using his powers (perhaps a normal ID Presence Attack; or running over in normal form to knock as many out of the way as he can). [This assumes the Full Phase change option.]

3. A environmental terrorist super villain is threatening to blow up a hydro-electric dam. Intense electro-magnetic fields everywhere. Pseudo-Colossus can't use his powers there if this is the not in an Electro-Magnetic field option.

Not in Electro-Magnetic field version can't rely on his powers against many electricity-based or magnetic-based foes; not to mention being without super-powers in most power plants, near nuclear powered devices, some parts of junk yards (if they have an electro-magnet crane), and the like.

Takes a Full Phase version has serious problems in any surprise situation. Especially if someone other than himself is placed in danger.

Now that I've gone through all that, I'd like to point out that while your suggestion meets the bare-minimum written requirements of the rules, I don't think it meets the spirit. The construction 'and/or' in the rules, plus Steve Long's rulings on the matter suggest to me that the less time it takes to change IDs the easier it should be prevent the change. I don't think it's meant to be a truly binary situation. If that were the case, the word 'or' by itself would have been sufficient. However, since I hadn't yet brought up 'spirit of the rules', I did not take that into account with the above scenarios and still managed to come up with multiple situations in which the character was limited without their being killed or KOed with no chance to fight back. I'm sure you can see how the character's life would get even more complicated if I decided to apply the 'spirit of the rules' to this discussion.

Re: Oihid

Am I contradicting you? I was merely stating a point.

So it sounds to me like you're admitting to making a non sequitur. Okay.

Maybe in your campaign. Yet virtually every conversion I've seen of him has OIHID.

Not in my campaign, by the book. The book requires a minimum of a Full Phase Action (which Colossus violates) and/or a way of preventing the change (which Colossus also violates). Therefore, it's hardly unique to my campaign like you imply.

That other people have chosen to misapply OIHID does not support your claim that OIHID is broken. It supports the claim that some players misapply the Limitation, and perhaps it could be written clearer in the rules (not that I agree that it needs to be rewritten), but that's about it. OIHID, when enforced by the rules in the book, is a legit limitation.

I love the way people make statements about "lack of imagination" when they disagree with someone.

I gave you 3 examples of how OIHID can prevent a character from changing IDs without said character being killed or KOed without a chance to act and did not involve combat. You responded with yet another combat-oriented example suggesting that a OK/Kill was routinely the only way to stop many (if not most) OIHID constructs. That was the basis for my 'lack of imagination' comment.

If you feel it was unjustified, feel free to prove it such by coming up with a legitimate (i.e. book legal) use of OIHID in which the KO/Kill is the only way to make it limiting.

Re: Oihid

1) The default rules say that OIHID can take 1 phase to change

 

2) The default rules say that you can abort to any action that takes 2 phases or less to activate

 

3) Therefore the default rules state that at least some OIHID can be aborted to.

Absolutely none of which contradicts anything I wrote in the message you're replying to.

You can of course house rule that no OIHID can be aborted to, but that's acknowledging that the default rules have a problem.

What house rule? Where in the message you replied to did I ever say that no OIHID could be Aborted to? I simply applied the same guidelines that Steve Long officially says to apply: special effects & game balance. Not a single house rule needed.

Let's take a comic example that Hugh posted earlier. In comics, Collossus can and clearly has aborted to his armored form. His "difficulty to change" basically boils down to the fact that he's a liability when Magneto is in the scene.

 

So unless Magento is around, the only way to utilize his OIHID against him is to ambush him in his normal form before he can react.

Collossus also is capable of changing forms mid-action and takes less than a second to do so; since it takes less than a Full Phase action to change, he's not really an OIHID. Captain Marvel is a better example.

And it's not common practice for a GM to knock out or kill a character before the character has an action. Just like no GM generally has a sniper with loads of range penalty levels shoot a PC in the head with a 4d6 RKA while he's patrolling after Finding Weakness a few times...

Of course, you don't need to go anywhere near that far to make OIHID a limitation. If the only ways you can think of to limit OIHID are combat-related, your lack of imagination is the problem, not OIHID. After all, I listed 3 example ways of preventing the change to a Hero ID, none of which required the PC being unconcious.

You also still haven't addressed the fact that OIHID should have a way of preventing the change.

Re: Oihid

This was already brought up. A character can abort to any action that increases his Defenses or is otherwise "protective". Going from normal to heroic ID definitely qualifies. And per the FAQ, a character can abort to anything that takes 2 phases or less. If it takes 2 phases, the character loses his next 2 phases to abort. If it takes less than 2 phases, the character loses only one phase to abort.

 

So aborting to heroic ID is definitely legal according to the default rules. Which makes OIHID not much of a limitation unless you house rule that you can't abort.

First, as others pointed out, Steve Long ruled that it's something that has to be ruled on as a case-by-case basis taking into account special effects, balance abuses and the such. So, it's not just a hard & fast rule that you automatically can Abort to actions that take more than 0 phases.

If a character is built w/ a 1 phase OIHID on his defenses & also has a Speed higher than the campaign average (allowing a relatively quick recovery of the Abort), that should be a warning sign to the GM. If the Speed is equal to or lower than the campaign average or the OIHID takes ore than 1 phase, that Abort is going to be a lot bigger pain.

As with many power/advantage/limitation combinations, GM interaction is required. That's hardly unusual or undesired in a system as flexible as Hero.

Second, you've not addressed the fact that OIHID has a requirement for there being a way to prevent the change in the first place. This, combined with the character's lack of perfect awareness of all situations, will make Aborting a non-possibility in some cases.

So long as the GM is enforcing the rules of OIHID, it will be limiting. The character will occationally have to burn one or more actions to abort to their powers (and only if defensive) and can do absolutely nothing else during that time (no movement, defensive manuevers, etc). In addition, there will be times that the character cannot even abort due to physical inability (he had to place his magic cane in the overhead luggage compartment), simply not being aware of what's going on (failing the Perception Roll to see the hijackers boarding the plane where there's plenty of hostages) and/or role-playing considerations (you can't call down the lightning because you're sitting inside a crowded airplain).

Sounds to me like the OIHID character's life can get pretty complicated on occation and those points savings aren't coming free. In fact, in every game I've seen involving OIHID characters in which the GM actually did enforce character's lims, those savings did get "paid" for just as often as anyone else's -1/4 lims.

Re: Oihid

I just wanted to address a couple of points that Gary brought up:

First, about how long it takes to get into your heroic ID when you have OIHID, the rules say:

"the change must take at least a Full Phase, if not longer". (HSR 197)

So, changing forms cannot be done as a 0-phase action, nor can the character do anything else while changing forms. The second part came from a ruling by Steve Long found here.

As for characters just aborting to their heroic ID:

First, if it takes a full phase to complete the transformation. So, even if they do abort, the attack(s) will land well before the transition is complete. Therefore, none of those OIHID defenses will apply (just as if you had a Force Field that took a full phase to turn on). Also, the book also says:

"there must be other difficulties or ways to prevent him from changing identities". (HSR 197)

So, it might even be physically impossible for the character to change IDs.

I didn't recall anyone bringing these two points up, so far (if someone did & I missed it, sorry) but felt they are important things to take into account.

It seems to me that if the GM enforces those two aspects of OIHID, the limitation will indeed be limiting. As for how often the GM should do so, the equivalent activation roll is 15-. That's roughly 5%. So, about 5% of the time, any OIHID powers should unavailable. In my oppinion, and I suspect that of several others in this thread, that's not an unreasonable burden to place on the GM.