Willpower

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? As I had mentioned before. I don't consider anything, but what is in the rulebook as required. Hell, even that is not required if you so choose. FAQ's are cool, and really help a GM in determining how to handle things, but I have seen FAQ's give divergent answers in two different examples at times. It is not like the gaem designers have all possible situations handled already, and just didn't put them in the book. So a lot of the time, when a FAQ handles a situation not specifically outlined in the rulebook, it is the designer reading the situation and telling others how they would handle it. This is why sometimes the answer would vary depending on the specific situation, when the designer is writing the FAQ, and which designer is handling that particular situation at the time. I know technically they are "official" rulings, though that doesn't mean you have to handle them the same way if you have a reason not to choose so. This will probably be an unpopular suggestion, cause I know everytime I have disagreed on something like this in the past the lemmings all roll out to dump on me.

Re: Acronym Refresher

Re: Acronym Refresher I like this too. Wow, I am all over the board on this.

Re: Acronym Refresher Agreed

Re: Acronym Refresher FRED was never official. More of a nickname fans used like BBB was used to describe 4th edition rules book. I am fine with however it is or isn't used, as is Chris it seems. Personally, at this point, I am thinking referring to each by the official 5E and 5ER is the best way to go though, to cut down on confusion.

Re: Acronym Refresher Chris, not to start an argement, but are you sure on some of these. I know for a fact that FRED was originally used for standard fifth edition, not revised. It seems to be debatable whether it has or has not been expanded to that of the revised edition. In the thread we started discussing it, some seemed to feel it was correct, and others felt think it referred to the original fifth edition. This was in fact the exact reason I had started the thread that gave FRED its name in the first place. The new book was black, and some had thought to call it the Big Black Book, but that had the same initials as the Big Blue Book (BBB), and so I thought a distinction was needed. The thread had Steve visit it, he suggested Fred (rather a nonsuggestion really) and I seconded it, and viola FRED was born. With the advent of the Revised edition though, and some wanting to use the same name for it and other not, we are now back to what I had originally wanted to avoid in the first place. When you first told me of the changing of the anagram I thought it made more sense for the revised edition to be called FRED instead of the original, but after seeing others confusion, I am not so sure. Personally, I would like to keep using FRED for revised, as I had a big hand in its inception and revised will be what is talked of more, but if it is too confusing for people I think it would probably be better to simplify it and simply refer to them as 5E and 5ER respectively. (I also do not like the original 5th edition being cut out of the FRED name loop too, since it would feel as if that had been taken from me. So I might be biased there, but enough about that, I have mentioned my bias twice now.) (BTW Fifth Rules EDition was the anagram I came up with for it.)

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Var. Adv. maybe, not really Var. SFX though. Obviously with var. SFX if you have a wide enough ability with it you could target specific weaknesses, such as vulnerabilities. But it would not work for getting partially around FF's and such by recalibrating the energy signature, when such a weakness was not present. Think of it like Star Trek. If the energy of the Phaser beam is the same signature as that of the Shields used to protect the ship, then the phaser goes right through. The energy is the same, just its particular wavelength is different. The ship is not bought with a Vulnerability to Phaser Wavelength 16705-ROF64G. Particularly, because the wavelength of the energy can be changed given time. Typically people don't take vulnerabilities to particular energy signatures, even when they have a FF. It could be a good idea to do but would not really be too noteworthy, unless it was a stander thing in your game though.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? the situation you describe is one of those rare events, that the rules don't really cover completely. Personally depending on the SFX, I would call that even if you had FW on B, you wouldn't get it hitting him by accident instead of A, your intended target. There are some SFX, that would change my mind on this though.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Unless of course the SFX has to do with the manipulation of luck, or something like that. (IE, Luck is with me in my fight against you this day, so all my shots are hitting exceptionally good.)

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Well, as I said before. Fifth Revised EDition, does make more sense for the revised edition's name, and so publicly I will use that name for revised from now on. Though, I do not own Revised, so I am not sure how much I will use it. I may take you up on your offer Chris thanks.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Hmm... Well theres a discussion that seems to be needed if we are going to continue to refer to the game based on its nickname simply so we don't have to continuously type out Hero System Fifth Edition, and Hero System Fifth Edition Revised. I too had originally thought FREd was the nick of the original 5th edition. (As I helped name it) But was unsure of what the revised edition was referred to as. I always quote from the original 5th edition.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? When did that happen? FRED was actually the original nickname used to describe 5th edition. It was chosen as the nickname before 5th edition even came out. I know, because I helped name it such. Steve Long actually coined the term. When I had posed the question, "What is going to be the new editions nickname?" (as we had always called 4th Edition the BBB, or the Big Blue Book) Steve said something like, "You can call it Fred for all I care." I then responded back, "FREd it is." And then went on to give it the anagram, "Fifth Rules Edition." Now using it as Fifth Revised Edition, does seem to work better, but since the whole name was created by Steve and I, then I will always refer to 5th edition as FREd, at least personally. Though since this has become standard terminology here to refer to the Revised edition as FRED, then I will do so on here from now on, and simply refer to my edition as FRED when not on the web boards. PS, I don't know if the boards go back far enough to confirm that this is how it happened or not, but it is in fact, how FREd was named.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? You might think so. That might even be the official line at Hero, but at the end of the day (and by day I mean a serious length of time) when people look back at what the rules of a game were in a previous edition, they will look at the rule book, not countless supplements and FAQ's. I stand by my opinion that FRED is the rules I use, and I have no problems with it.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? We're quibbling over straws here. The initial instance I mentioned a punch I specifically said a "simple" punch. Meaning a normal punch. Obviously there are cases to the contrary, such as a fire projector surrounded by an RKa damage shield. And if a mystic came up to me and said I punch so weak, that the defense should be mental defenses I would laugh them out of my game. In that specific case, I would allow them to take reduced penetration, if anything at all. a 5 to 10 strength works fine to show such a character. In any case, Chris Mullins, has shown me how the text applies to different types of defenses, better than was shown before and now I understand it better. It still is not a problem for me as I use FRED, not the Revised rules.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? To be fair, I never said he was lying. I said that he was either using a different edition (which he was) or he was lying. To be fair in another respect FRED more than has enough of what is needed. The game is difficult enough as it is without bogging the game down with useless additional rules such as those presented in this FW debate. I am sure there are some other rules it has added, which are not useless, but still in truth the game does not need any new rules.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Ok, now I understand the problem with the rule as quoted. That does become stupid then. FW also becomes much less unbalanced than AP then. However, it is not my problem, as I use the fifth edition frule from FREd, as it was meant to be. As I said before if it isn't in the rulebook then it is optional, and since it isn't in my rulebook, I have no problem.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? I wasn't meaning that the changes in the book were meaningless. I was meaning that the wording of the change, as quoted, would still be meaningless since the defense in question would obviously have to be based off of the attack the power was purchased to be used with. So if you had FW with a punch, you would obviously not choose an exotic defense for your FW to work against. You would choose normal defenses. I would assume this separation of defenses was added to help balance the power, so someone couldn't buy FW for all attacks and have it with killing attacks, mental attacks and normal attacks all at once.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Sean, I have been nothing but calm in this debate. This post has in fact been the ONLY one that has got me in even the tiniest bit upset, and that could be just a problem with version type maybe, though I doubt it. I just relooked in the 5th Edition book though, and unless you have a different edition of 5th edition, this is incorrect. It does not say what you are claiming is said anywhere in the description for Find Weakness. Here is the only pieces of text I can see that MIGHT be misinterpreted to say this. First paragraph, "a character with this Power may reduce his target's apprpriate defense". Appropriate defense in this case is related to the power Find Weakness is working with. If it is a physical killing attack then it is rPD, if it is a mental attack then MD, if it is a normal energy attack then it is ED. Again, no need to specify defense, as it is dictated by the power used. Second to the last paragraph, "Weaknesses may be found in all types of defenses, including Force Fields or Force Walls." It is just specifying that it can work against all defensive types. Again this would be appropriate to the attack used. Now I got my rulebook like the day 5th edition was put out, so it is possible, though unlikely that this power was changed. Even if it was changed though, the choice would still be dependent upon the attack used. For instance if the attack used was a simple punch than it would be stupid to pick an exotic defense or resistant defenses, so even IF this was changed in a reprinting, it is meaningless. Peace be with you Sean, I am not angry or anything with you, just debating an issue I think has been misinterpretted. In fact I am not sure what in the quoted text made you think I was upset.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Preach it.

Re: Supervillain Showdown -- The Finale! Dr. Destroyer vs. Kreuzritter

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Why don't you simply buy it as combat levels with a limitation that it only works to increase damage, and requires a skill roll, that can be affected byt the LOW ability. Seems to be a lot simpler than the mess you guys are creating.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Yes, in other games systems I have tried such situations were commonplace. There was a power in the old MSH RPG that allowed a character to mimic any power that they had ever witnessed being used. Talk about a book keeping nightmare. I suppose you could cap it at around the 1 turn end level, but then you have just taken an ability that you and many others are trying to say is broken, and making it even more powerful. I could see that it might make sense SFX-wise to do so, but I do not really see it as making any more sense than the way it is currently used. I mean if you can try again, what is the SFX basis for their being a progressive period that you cannot try? Ok, not making it a cap is fine. Since it isn't one now. So we are back to it being a GM call. Which is fine for me. I do understand what you are talking about synergistically. The actual rules makes no way to cap them in that fashion. When Hero tried to redesign Champions with a new system named Fuzion, they implemented something called a Rule of X, which attempted at doing that. It did work to a certain point, but in truth it standardized characters more than capped them. Which was the one thing about the Rule of X I didn't like. Don't get me wrong, I do like it. I just do not like following it by the letter. In Fuzion it led to people very specializing their powers. Since you could build skills for attacking (HTH, Ranged, as well as more specialized skills for particular attacks) it caused people to have different levels of attacks, along with different levels of skills for those attacks so they could manipulate the Rule of X. When it came to that, it actually hindered the game rather than helped it. I think it is better to just have a GM who understands how the game works, and can spot areas where synergy would lead to unbalancing affect. For instance if you want to really overwork your own example, try giving that character with 45 Str, 26" flight, and 27 Dex a passing strike manuever. Now he can do all of that to greater effect and takes no damage to boot, and with fewer penalties. That is why I always disallow the MA Passing Strike type manuevers in my Supers games.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? Yes, I understand what you are meaning Chris. What I had given was a SFX explanation for the given question. However it was not needed, as you do not need to choose between defense types as was indicated by the question. For the Targetting Laser System would simply be able to find the sweetspot if you will on all sorts of targets. Tanks, Humans, etc. The Di Mok FW on the other hand would not be able to affect things without discernable anatomies, such as a Tank, so it would have to have the appropriate Limitation to reflect this.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? I already replied to this, but since I have now had a chance to go over the rules for it again, I will readdress. I originally stated I would agree with this wish, but this wish is not needed as this is already the way FW works.

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced? OK, got a chance to look at FREd again, and so I am now at a greater competency to address this question. No where in the rules does it say that you have to choose between which defenses Find Weakness will affect. The closest it comes to the matter is saying that Find Weakness works against all types of defenses, including Force Fields or Force Walls. I believe that is pretty close to verbatem what it says in the book. No where else does it even address such a statement. That being the case, you do not have to differentiate between normal and resistant defenses. It works the same as Armor Piercing does, it affects all your defenses at once. The only difference is that with Armor Piercing, if one of your defense types is hardened then that type is not affected, where the rest are. LOW on the other hand will prevent FW from working all together, so it essentially helps ALL of your defenses, and not just a particular one it is applied too. And before you go into the AP rules, on how they work against normal or resistant defense, it is based off of the attack in question, so it will work appropriately based on the attack. No need to choose there either, except for which attack gets AP