Durzan Malakim

Yeah, I'm not looking to kill everyone who falls in the water, I'm aiming for slow and challenging, maybe involving a CON Roll or something. My players all tend to keep their Encumbrance levels below 25%, most even below 10%. So I'm less worried about the high end than I am the low end.

I know most Fantasy Hero campaigns don't bother with END tracking, but if you do or are willing to track it in this one case, then perhaps swimming while encumbered costs extra END.

Its pretty much cross-genre.  When the sci fi device digs a tunnel, it doesn't need to worry about shoring things up (or does it automatically).  The dirt is 'disintegrated' or used for fuel or something.  In magic, it just makes a tunnel, magicking away problems.  We're trying to simulate a game world here, not create reality on paper.

Tunneling is one of those powers where I personally have a hard time suspending my disbelief the more I think about it. The cognitive dissonance is just made worse when people use the default disintegration special effect as the basis of their builds, even though it is a perfectly legal build with the rules as written.

It just feels like someone is exploiting a technicality and then conveniently ignoring other technicalities that could be used against them such as:

• Will the tunnel collapse and if so when?
• Will you hit a dangerous obstacle?
• Will you need flight or climbing to tunnel vertically?

I suppose these are issues between GM and player though. Live by the technicality; die by the technicality.

That has a lot to do with the system's superheroic roots. Mole-Machines (Vehicles or Automatons with Tunneling) and Tunneling Supervillains that never have to deal with the logistics of real world tunneling are fairly common in superhero comics.

True enough. They also don't have to worry about collapsing tunnels, running into gas lines, flooding, and a whole bunch of other stuff that real tunnelers have to deal with. It's just that Tunneling as Disintegration Touch seems like an odd default value to me. Of course I suppose it is no more odd than pondering how a tunneler can create a vertical shaft straight up without flight or climbing to counteract gravity.

I'd only expect the real world obstacles to intrude if and when the GM needs it to for a plot point or to curb rules abuse. "Are you sure you want to tunnel into the oil refinery?"

That's better, but I'm still not crazy about an 18 STR character being able to swim in full chainmail without penalty, even if they're not a particularly strong swimmer.

I assume that 18 STR is fairly common in your Fantasy Hero campaign.

Sigh. I'm really not happy with any of those methods.

Rather than further fine-tune the encumbrance rules you could just say that only people with an appropriate background have any swimming movement. So sailors, pirates, and divers can swim, but your typical man-at-arms cannot. In such a setting, having an 18 STR no longer gives you a "get out of drowning free" card.

Does anyone else find it odd that the Tunneling rules hand-wave the hardest part of real-world tunneling, which is removing whatever material you're digging into from out of your tunnel? I'd expect the Fill In option to be the default tunneling mode and make people pay +10 CP to have all that stuff magically disappear. At least with Transform builds I can see where you literally transmute the stone/soil/metal into air. I almost think Tunneling should come with a Side Effect (Whole bunch of loose material to move out of the tunnel). 

As mentioned in the writeup, the King of Beasts could make a formidable gatherer of secrets. Birds watch you enter your bank PIN. The house cat watches you enter your login credentials. A pack of rats sneak into your base to discover the layout and overhear your latest plans. It's not flashy villainy, but potentially profitable villainy nonetheless.

I think some suffer from mental paralysis: special effect is presenting a gray areas of the rules and they are frozen trying to come up with the "correct" rule.

 

That and psy lim: Must overly complicate a build due to fear that the build doesn't account for every minute outlying once in a blue moon occurance.

So you're saying that casting a Light spell while Levitating in a Pit trap may cause extended mental paralysis? Sounds about right.

Following Doc's lead I too RTFM for the Usable As Attack advantage (6E1 pages 358-359). Since I realize not everyone has or uses the 6E books, here are the relevant bits:

• UAA powers should only have limitations that affect the Grantor.
• UAA powers are only usable as attacks and cannot be used for their normal purpose.
• UAA powers may require a half-phase action to control the Recipient.
• GM may require an Attack roll to do something that harms the Recipient.

These rules certainly remove some of my previous objections.

FYI: Does a Movement power Usable As Attack require a full phase to move the target the full move value? I'd suspect yes so you might need to have 8m Tunneling to force someone to move 4m in a half phase.

I think what Dur[z]an is saying here is that the creation of the pit is not the primary objective of the power as described. It was specifically described as creating a pit under someone to trap them. Thus the trap is the primary objective, the pit is an effect associated with that.

 

I am not saying that creating a pit cannot be a primary objective, it can, as you have demonstrated, but that is likely to be more powerful and cost more....and be more cumbersome to use as an attack.

 

It should all come down to gameplay and I would explain all that to the player, allowing him to decide what effects he wanted access to (was willing to pay for).

 

Doc

Yes, I thought the primary objective was to restrain targets and prevent their movement. The piddling amount of falling damage and line of sight issues are secondary game effects, but ones that can be modeled fairly easily. I can see where creating holes at a distance is an interesting application of a movement power as long as the intent is to actually allow or force others to move through those holes. 

On second thought, for only preventing run movement a Limited Power limitation probably makes more sense than a Conditional Power limitation. Maybe this: Limited Power Power loses about two-thirds of its effectiveness (Only prevents run movement; -1 1/2)

Here's another version of Pit Trap that uses Entangle.

Pit Trap (created by a sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic):(Total: 75 Active Cost, 32 Real Cost) Blast 2d6, Area Of Effect Accurate (1m Radius; +1/2) (15 Active Points); Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect flying targets; -1/4), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect targets too big to fall into a 2m wide pit; -1/4), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Pit must be conjured on horizontal surface. Normal gravity must be present for target to fall into pit.; -1/4) (Real Cost: 8) 
PLUS
Entangle 5d6, 5 PD/5 ED (standard effect: 5 BODY, 5 PD/5 ED) (Stops A Given Sense Group Sight Group) (60 Active Points); Conditional Power Power does not work in Common Circumstances (Only prevents run movement; -1/2), Linked (Conjure pit from extradimensional space; -1/4), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect flying targets; -1/4), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect targets too big to fall into a 2m wide pit; -1/4), Can Be Dispelled (-1/4) (Real Cost: 24)

Usable As Attack makes Tunneling into an Attack Power, which then allows it to legally take modifiers such as Area of Effect, Ranged or Indirect, and you do not necessarily have to target a person, you can target an object (such as a pebble or air molecule) via UAA Tunneling and force it to create a tunnel for the intended victim to fall into, and use Area of Effect (Radius) to define the size of the tunnel by forcing all of the air molecules in the radius to tunnel.

Regardless, Indirect isn't necessary, because the path of the attack is not linked to the direction you force them to tunnel. You can be the origin point for the attack, and have it's path be directly towards the target (the default set up), yet still have the target tunnel directly downwards.

 

Create Tunnel:  ​Tunneling 8m (8 PD), Area of Effect (2m Radius, Selective; +1/2), Usable As Attack (Standard Range, Recipient Can Go Anywhere; +2) (84 APs); Instant (-1/2), No Noncombat Movement (-1/4). Total Cost:  48 points.

Note:  This power can create an 8m long, 4m wide Tunnel in any direction. This version of the power allows the user to select whether any given character within the area is moved by the power. By default it would simply target all of the air/dust molecules in the area, or all of the molecules on the surface of the body to be tunneled into, forcing them to create a tunnel 4m wide which an enemy might then fall into. Technically this would require an almost infinite number of attack rolls, but with a minimum of a 64% hit rate, you can speed up play by simply assuming enough air/dust/surface molecules are affected to create a tunnel of the appropriate size. However you could also target a character with this power, in which case they would move with the tunnel (and therefore would not take falling damage if said tunnel went straight down). To make a version which cannot target characters/objects, or which only tunnels in a specific direction (such as downward) apply the appropriate Limited Power modifier.

To me this is an example of designing to the special effect rather than the game effect. I feel that using the game rules for environmental effects such as falling damage, line of sight penalties, and movement restrictions circumvents the core design philosophy of creating powers based on their game effects. It also makes it harder to balance with other powers since you haven't specified how much damage, sight restriction, and movement restriction the pit causes.

Suppose the pit trap included an enclosed vacuum bubble inside it. Would you allow a Change Environment power to create the vacuum and then use the game rules for suffocation to cause damage and the physics of there being no air to also cause darkness to sound? To me those are a NND attack and darkness.

In my opinion the game effects to model are:

• Hit the target either with an attack roll versus the target hex or failed DEX roll. Add limitations about size and alternate movement modes. SFX: Target tries to avoid falling into the pit.
• Triggered normal damage. SFX: Falling into the pit.
• Triggered restriction to run movement either by entangle or suppress. SFX: Being at the bottom of a pit.
• Triggered darkness to normal sight or entangle blocks normal sight. SFX: Being at the bottom of a pit.

You still haven't created a Power that will do what is needed to simulate falling into a pit. For example, as far as "restricting movement" goes, the person targeted has two possibilities:

 

1. Fell into the pit - can't move, period.

2. Did not fall into the pit. Still able to move at full Running speed.

 

If there's a way to get Suppress to do that, I don't think we've seen it. And even if you can do that - and I will be impressed if you can - you're still far short of simulating all the effects of dropping in a pit or answering all of the objections that have been raised.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that there are also objections to the solutions involving Tunneling that I have not adequately addressed. Typical of the palindromedary to see both sides. It does agree, however, that Suppress is absolutely unworkable.

I still believe modeling based on game effects is the best approach. If you want to ensure zero run movement, use entangle. If you want to cause falling damage, add a HTH or NND attack. If you want to restrict visibility, add darkness or use the entangle advantage. I realize this could be an expensive power, but you should get what you pay for. I don't think you should pay for tunneling movement and then also get restraint, darkness, and damage for free.

At least with my models it clear what you're getting, and you can add or remove effects to taste. I like the flavor opportunities the suppress build offers because I think high-running characters should be able to run out of pits with speedster tricks. Call it a free level of Clinging because it would look cool. I call that a feature not a bug. There's always Entangle for the "I haz to stop all movement always."

What if you doubled the current weight of all gear while in the water to represent the gear absorbing extra water weight? I know not all gear absorbs water but a simple multiplier of some type like x1.5 or x2 is easier to work out than determining what happens for each piece of gear.

No... just no.

It is neither a Suppress or an Entangle. It is definitely UAA Tunneling.

We obviously see game effects very differently. I don't think one movement power can accurately model these unrelated game effects:

• Restricting movement
• Restricting sight lines
• Potentially causing falling damage

To me those are all different game effects represented by different powers, and that is how I would suggest modeling them.

I think the game effect is either suppress run movement or entanglement. Everything else is just SFX and perhaps one or more Limited Power limitations. Should larger targets be immune to the pit trap because they are literally too big to fall in? Should targets with stretching (reach) be able to climb out easier? Should targets with alternate movement powers like tunneling, leaping, and flight be able to move out? Compare:

7 Pit Trap (Suppress + Darkness): (Total: 70 Active Cost, 35 Real Cost) Suppress Run 4d6 (standard effect: 12 points), Area Of Effect Accurate (2m Radius; +1/2) (60 Active Points); Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect targets larger than standard size; -1/4), Limited Power Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (Targets with reach can climb out as movement; -1/4) (Real Cost: 30) 
PLUS
Darkness to Sight Group 2m radius (10 Active Points); Costs END To Maintain (Full END Cost; -1/2), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect targets larger than normal size; -1/4), Limited Power Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (Targets with reach can climb out as movement; -1/4) (Real Cost: 5) 35

8 Pit Trap (Entangle): Entangle 5d6, 5 PD/5 ED (standard effect: 5 BODY, 5 PD/5 ED) (Stops A Given Sense Normal Sight), Area Of Effect Accurate (2m Radius; +1/2) (82 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about two-thirds of its effectiveness (Only affects run movement; -1 1/2), Does Not Prevent The Use Of Accessible Foci (-1), Conditional Power Power does not work in Uncommon Circumstances (Does not affect targtes larger than normal size; -1/4), Limited Power Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (Targets with reach can climb out as movement; -1/4) 20

My Champions group has run into two different villains with exotic AVAD powers. Since they both appeared at the same time, I'm pretty sure they were a "clue by four" meant to convey, "You are not ready for this fight. Time to run away now." After getting our noses quite bloodied we eventually implemented plan "Brave Sir Robin" and got out of there.

I can see why a GM might use exotic AVAD powers to herd players down the plot railroad tracks. I haven't seen much or any player use of exotic AVAD powers, but our group doesn't contain any ultra-competitive sorts who feel compelled to win every fight. As the math shows, AVAD powers are not the "I win" button most people might think they are.

How about using suppress on run?

Pit Trap: Suppress Run 3d6, Area Of Effect Accurate (2m Radius; +1/2) (45 Active Points); Costs Endurance (to maintain; -1/2)

I suspect telling your players the spirit of the rule will help drive the desired behavior. "This rule encourages people to take advantages they may not otherwise take. Since I know you're going to min-max anyway, min-max by adding more advantages."

I would anticipate all Multipower and Variable Power Pools frameworks to be built around the -2 total limitation such as:

Blast one

• Area of effect (16m radius, Selective, Accurate) (+1 1/4)
• Armor piercing (+1/4)
• Penetrating (+1/2)

Blast two

• Affects Desolidified (+1/2)
• Damage Over Time (2 damage increments, damage occurs every 6 Segments +1 1/2)

Continuing Deadman's thought, the min-max goal changes from getting the most active-points for the least real-points to purchasing advantages equal to your chosen limitation total. So if you know that you're going to take an Obvious Accessible Focus with 4 charges for (-2), I suspect players will shop for +2 worth of advantages to avoid wasting the points.

Can't you accomplish the same or better results with active point limits and GM review of limitations? Or if that feels too much like a tax audit, you could just put a hard cap on the number of limitations on any one power; say a maximum of 3.

As a known user/admirer of the HERO System, I wish Patrick Rothfuss would release his Kingkiller series as a HERO System setting or supplement. I know the chances of it actually happening are small, but that might bring in some new blood.

Which complication best describes you?

I only have a 10-point complication myself but that might be because of skills:

11- KS: D&D Editions 2

11- KS: GURPS editions 2

11- KS: HERO System 6th ed 2

8-   KS: HERO System editions 1

8-   KS: ICONS 1

11- Conversation 3

11- Deduction 3

11- Persuasion 3

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

- 1upus because Lupus was taken. And no, I do not suffer from lupus. Latin for wolf

I keep reading your handle as 1-up-us as in "one-up-us", which may be putting unreasonable pressure on you to perform but sounds way cooler in my head than lupus. In any case, welcome to the HERO-hood.

[W]ho buys resistant mental defense??

I bought resistant mental defense after running into a Big Bad Mentalist with that flavor of AVAD. I didn't realize how rare it was in other games. I probably wasted some points on a rare Bogey Man, but I also might be the only one left standing should he show up again.

Supervillains need assistants that simultaneously meet and defy expectations such as Young Frankenstein's EYE-GORE.