Willpower

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

Steve Long addressed that situation in the FAQ.

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

FREd never has' date=' and likely never will, stand for anything as an acronym. It's just a short hand name dervied from and off hand comment.[/quote']

 

Sorry, I do disagree with this part of your post. I was there at the start, and it most certainly did have an acronym, as I made it, when I seconded the name in the first place, andothers seconded, and validated it as Fifth Rules Edition. Which is why it was capitalized as such F(fifth) R(rules) Ed(Edition) in the first place.

Re: Acronym Refresher

FREd does and always has referred to the original, unrevised, 5th edition. I've never seen anyone before refer to 5ER as "FREd". I believe, Chris, that you have created confusion here where none existed before.

 

There's a reason we give things names: so that we can talk about them clearly. It would have been very confusing to refer to FREd or 5ER as BBB or "Big Black Book." That's why we give each one its own name.

 

Fifth, unrevised = FREd (or FRED if you prefer)

Fifth, revised = 5ER (or 5er, or Fiver)

Fourth, with Champions included in one volume = BBB

I like this too. Wow, I am all over the board on this.

Re: Acronym Refresher

Correct, which is why I started this thread. Let the community as a whole decide what to use.

 

For me, FRED is pretty much useless since there doesn't seem to be a division on what it stands for as far as actual use on the boards.

 

I'm hoping to avoid possible future confusion by suggesting acronyms for those things that may get confused with others: FW vs FWK.

 

- Christopher Mullins

Agreed

Re: Acronym Refresher

The Books (these are as official as you get, as they are the ones used by Steve, Darren and the rest of the Hero gang.)

 

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

This type of thread hasn't been done for a while so I figured I'd create a new one.

This is to help clarify what many of the Acronyms used on the board means.

 

Acronyms

FRED: Fith Revised EDition (although some still use Fith Rules EDition)

5ER: 5th Edition Revised

5th: 5th Edition

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?

I am taking a very long view approach when talking about the history of Find Weakness since I am referring to its earliest incarnations in the rules.

 

 

 

The first example is actually talking about adjusting the attack power which could more accurately be modelled with variable sfx or variable advantages (possibly built naked) . But by building the effect with Find Weakness you leave the door open to double dipping by adding those advantages as well.

 

The second example is just analyse style with bonus OCV put towards either extra DC's or specific hit locations.

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?

I've never felt comfortable with FW being interpeted as affecting the attack power because it is possible to FW on targets A and B then fire your attack at target A, have target B dive for cover in front of the attack and the FW still takes effect.

 

It makes much more sense to interpet FW as a power that affects the victim's defense, making it increasingly ineffective against your attack.

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?

I'm not sure I buy off that the original intention for FW was to compensate for the lack of a detailed hit location mechanic.

 

I disagree strongly that FW implies any necessity of targeting, per se. It can be "his electrothermal shield has a weakness when my Energy Blast signature is recalibrated to a Sin wave!" or "ah-ha, my sonic blast will be incredibly effective if I wait for him to blink when I let it loose!".

 

From this perspective, I would more eagerly embrace Sean's recommended changes (the notion of targetting senses makes sense even if a location is not the targetted objective, since one has to perceive a weakness in some manner).

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?

And this is exactly why I chose not to use the term FRED.

 

FRED was created and used for the initial release. What's that? You ask why? (8^D)

 

Hero 4th Edition (aka BBB): Was referred to BBB for the Big Blue Book (mostly).

Hero 5th Edition (aka FRED/5th): When Steve Long was asked what acronym should be used, he said, "You can call it FRED for all I care." Thus, FRED was born.

Hero 5th Edition Revised (aka FRED/5ER): Some chose to adapt the FRED acronym for the 5th Edition Revised, some chose to go with 5ER, while others chose to go with 5th Revised. Thus this confusion pops up from time to time. Unfortunately not everyone chose to go with the same acronym.

 

I had forgotten that some still referred to the original book as FRED.

 

- Christopher Mullins

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?

There's a term I haven't seen before

 

 

 

Well, bigdamnhero, it's later on. And now I'm confused

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.

You may be confusing some people here with your use of terms. (8^D)

 

FRED on these boards means Fifth Revised EDition.

 

UnRrevised on these boards means the initial release of the 5th Edition.

 

I don't have 5th Edtion Revised (FRED).

I have the original 5th Edition and use it in conjunction with the FAQs for 5th Edition.

 

PS: I try to avoid using the term FRED just so there won't be this type of confusion. (8^D)

 

PPS: If you want Willpower, I can email you the FAQs pdf file for 5th Edition. (schir1964 @ netzero.com)

 

- Christopher Mullins

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

There's been more than one person who have been somewhat... less than enthusiastic about Steve Long's clarifications of the official 5th Edition Hero (Non-Revised) rules. The intent of how the rules were meant to be understood don't mesh with many people's sensibilities.

 

But if you want to know what the true intent of a rule by the designers is, you need to read the FAQs which are considered just as official as the words in the book. Not to mention the supplements.

 

- Christopher Mullins

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?

Why? Is there something about a punch that means we would "obviously" choose normal defenses instead of something else, such as an exotic defense?

 

A mecha's punch might realistically be an HKA, and if a mystic's punch was so light as to inflict no actual damage (but meant to inflict some sort of mystical blow against the target's aura) it could very easily work against exotic defenses.

 

SFX do not belong to just one attack-type group. HERO is very flexible that way.

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?

Check the FAQ and / or 5th Edition Revised. Sean's statement is not in fact a lie, it is based upon more complete information than you have available in your 5th Edition Rulebook.

 

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?

Does this help?

 

- Christopher Mullins

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 don't think ~200 pages (over half the length of the original 5th Edition book!) made only "meaningless" changes.

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?

Calm. This topic seems to be upsetting people, which is a shame.

 

5ER says, and I quote...(fromt he FW power description, under 'Types Of Defence Affected')

 

When a character decides to use Find Weakness, he must chose one of the types of defence he wants to Find Weakness in:

 

1. normal

2. resistant

3. exotic

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.

I think it is interesting that people are working on different ways to create a Find Weaknessish power. I'm of the opinion that Find Weakness works just fine as it is, but obviously others disagree.

 

A couple of thoughts:

1) I've noticed a lot of negative posts regarding some of the tools in our tool kit simply because they work differently from other tools. I can't understand this at all. I think it is great that there are different kinds of mechanics in HERO. More choices. More tools. More ways to build just what you want to build.

 

Tossing out the Phillips head screwdriver because it doesn't match your collection of flat head screwdrivers seems like a bad idea to me. There are definitely some odd tools in the HERO tool kit -- Find Weakness is one -- but I think they're all balanced and bring added value to the tool kit as a whole.

 

2) The sfx for Find Weakness can be anything you want them to be! Whatever they are, they help you find weaknesses in defenses. The sfx can be:

• I'm smart!
  
• cosmic awareness
  
• weaknesses just love me -- they throw themselves at me!
  
• I see weakness just like I see color (Force Fields generated by plasma force generators show up as "red", natural PD defenses for rocky characters show up as "pink", etc)
  
• I hear weaknesses just like I hear sounds (Armor defined as a bunch of steel plates sounds like a "violin", Density Increase bonus defenses sound like a "trumpet", etc)
  
• I can't explain how I know where to hit people, I just do. Hey, do I ask you how you know how to target your Ego Blast? Frankly, it's a mystery how I sometimes find weaknesses in the people and objects I study -- but I sure am glad it works!

The sfx for Find Weakness help you tell a story and make your game fun. They may not be "realistic". Great! I find very little realistic about most HERO games -- the departure from what's real is very attractive to me. Wizards producing lightning from their fingertips? Cool! Super guys who can fly because they were bitten by a radioactive swan? Why not? Hard as nails PIs who talk information out of cocktail waitresses, jazz song birds, and the shoe shine boy all in a single day? Fun!

 

As a GM, I don't demand that sfx be realistic. I want them to have enough internal logic to support the character, provide me with plot hooks, and entertain everyone involved. Cold fusion doesn't work in reality, but it works just great in my superhero games.

 

3) Find Weakness can be abused. So can every skill, power, talent, characteristic, advantage, limitation... Players and GMs work together to prevent abuse and correct it when it crops up unexpectedly.

 

When Find Weakness is not abused it works just great.

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

Heh' date=' LOL [/quote']

 

 

I still think this contest was fixed.

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?

It does' date=' unfortunately - a relatively recent innovation. It groups normal and damage resistance defences in one group and other resistant defences in a seperate one, which makes no real sense in game as pd+damage resistance can look and feel exactly the same as armour or even force field powers from an sfx pov - they are only distinguished mechanically. That bit definitely has to go.[/quote']

 

Where in the fifth edition rulebook is this mentioned? As I just looked through the rules, and found it no where in the description for the FW ability. In my opinion, if it is not in the rulebook it does not exist. If it is a supplement, it exists, but only as an optional rule, not as cannon.

 

 

To be honest I had not anticipated it getting to that length of time but it kinda makes sense: maybe the weakness is just really hard to find ont hat particular individual. The way I had envisaged it working was that any significant gap reset the counter, so in practice you'd never get past the '1 turn' mark in any given combat, and it was just trying to create mechanics that were easily explicable and adapted. Mind you it might make sense if you could chose when you build the power which option you want to take.

 

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?

 

The thing i think we need to look at is some measure of the effectiveness of the (FW+ATTACK) gestalt: FW clearly makes the attack more effective and is of no use at all in isolation. I was not suggesting that we should treat (FW+ATTACK) active points as a cap necessarily, just that it was a consideration when considering whether to allow a power, or more importantly a synergystic whole. I think that the effects of synergy have been overlooked in Hero to a large extent with too much concentration on the unbalancing effects of individual powers: a superhero with 45 strength, or 26" of flight or 27 DEX, or 4x5 point combat levels might not raise eyebrows, but concentrate them all together in one character and you have someone who can do 18d6 movethroughs at an effective OCV of 8, which is plain nasty.

 

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.

I think what Sean was asking for was the rationale (SFXwise) for why the Laser that can find weaknesses in Tank Armor, but does absolutely nothing vs Human Skin.

 

What rationale would explain that or what SFX by description would work that way?

 

Just Trying To Clarify What I Think Is Being Asked (But Could Be Wrong)

 

- Christopher Mullins

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.

SO can we reach an idea of how we would like to see it?

 

Here's my wish list:

 

1. Get rid of the normal/resistant distinction and have the power, as a base, halve all defences.

 

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

OK' date=' big gun: how do your targetting laser and dimmok sfx explain the differentiation between normal and resistant defences, and their having to be targetted seperately?[/quote']