Doc Democracy

Dont touch your mask!! We need another sign of despair!!!

I think I hate that even more than the blanket affect desolid! 😄 I guess it could RAW be rationalised as one of the reasonably common SFX that allows desolid to be countered. What would the opinion be of someone buying Desolid twice, once for the usual reasons and once to affect the special effects etc that the other desolid did not cover? Would be expensive but deservedly so.... Doc

I was with you until this bit. Affects Desolid, as an advantage, means that an attack that would otherwise do no damage to a desolid character, does damage to a desolid character. It is keyed into an aspect of the power that is not affected by the limitation you put on the desolid. I am one of those that requires affect desolid powers to indicate what they are and why they affect a desolid character, many of those effects would probably also work against CPT INVULNERABLE. Freaky interplay of powers. I would also give players a clue that their freaky affect desolid power may have effect (unless, of course, the desolid was bought invisible). The question of walking into traffic is a good one but CPT INVULNERABLE does interact with solid matter, he just is not harmed by it. I would rule that it does the same as anyone else that walks into traffic. He would be hit, the car would take damage as if it had hit a normal person. Unless he had some ability to avoid it, the good captain would take knockback, he just would not take damage. I would also say that, of course he can block for others, just like anyone else that can interact with materials from the solid world can. It is no great advantage, anyone is allowed to block and they take no damage by doing so. Jumping in front of an attack is simply a block on behalf of an attack directed at someone else, it is not affected by the desolid power. Someone using the captain as cover would be using their noggin. The man IS INVULNERABLE after all. 🙂 But beware of knockback.... Doc

I will answer that,it is an antagonistic question for which I apologise. You would not because you would not have allowed it in your game. I am hoping though that you can see, for folk that have seen past any hard coded SFX, that this is a legitimate construct with different pros and cons to LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE. (I see you have just responded, will finish before reading). Doc

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

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

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

To be fair, what is coming into question is that Superman will often fly in front of a target and protect it by allowing machine gun bullets to fly off his chest. If your invulnerability is defined as Desolid (not to pass through walls) can you do that kind of thing?? In my mind, yes, it would be part of the contract I made with the player when I allowed an invulnerability power using that mechanic. Of course it provides the SFX of invulnerability. I can see the argument against that, mechanically you might say that he cannot do that and so disallow the mechanic to be used for an invulnerability power. Doc

Not that I am a huge proponent of the construct but... Desolid against campaign average attack - no damage [LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against campaign average attack - no damage Desolid against 2x campaign average attack - no damage [LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 2x campaign average attack - no damage Desolid against 10x campaign average attack - no damage [LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 10x campaign average attack - some damage perhaps lots Desolid against 100x campaign average attack - no damage [LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE] against 100x campaign average attack - wiped out, possibly dead Now this is hero, there are places where LARGE NUMBER DEFENCE is going to be better and paces where it is going to be just as good. However, against the core concept of piling up normal damage then Desolid has the edge because it has an absolute effect against that where other things do not. Of course there are ways round it, that is the nature of the beast that is HERO. It is however quite possible to say that a mechanic with an absolute effect is closer to accomplishing an absolute power than a mechanic that does not possess an absolute effect... Doc

As a microbiologist, my worry is that there are such cases appearing. Where are they coming from? It probably means there are significantly more than 1 in 4K getting it, there are obviously folk with minor or no symptoms transmitting the virus and it is only those with serious enough symptoms that are being recorded. This would be an ideal time for your area to test and contact trace - there are probably few enough that you could find everyone with the virus and stop even the small amount of spread being reported. And then noone would need the masks. Problem is that when the impact is so small, there is little incentive to spend the cash to stamp it out completely but when the incentive is big enough, it is too big to stamp out completely...

He has 15/15 Damage Resistance...

I totally agree. The worst aspect of using desolid for invulnerability would be if, in game, the players were misled into thinking that more of the same kind of damage might be effective. It is also unsatisfactory if this is the place where Mr MultiTool switches to his affect desolid blast and circumvents the plotline where the characters go to InvulnerableGuy's home planet to learn of his backstory and how to counter the super-armour. Obviously all that can indeed be done in other ways. DreadDomain has a real point but I do think there is value in a lot of the tricksy builds. I think THAT is simply another manifestation of the HERO System not being a game to play but an engine to build a game to play. Doc

I guess if they take their kids with them....

I think I posted it before but it bears repeating. This guy is a hero... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51332811 Doc

I disagree. I think both humanity AND civilisation can survive. I think we might even end with a better civilisation if this was a regular occurrence. Humanity survived for thousands of years in its battle with disease and our civilisation has just been (economically/socially) inoculated on how to deal with this. It also flushes out incompetents in ways that are difficult to disown. We would be better at it next time and better again the time after that. Once we swallow the initial impact we adapt. It's what makes us so resilient. I am determined to approach this with a level of optimism. Doc

Nothing in the story suggests they are killing themselves PRIOR to procreation... 🙂

If I had allowed Desolid, cannot pass through solid material as a power with the SFX of invulnerability, then the character by definition would be a good human shield. He is invulnerable. It would be inconsistent to allow it in there, as described and not allow it to be used in that way. Doc

It is what limited power is all about. Make one up. You are limiting the effectiveness of the area effect...the value is probably somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2. 😄

Oh yes, the attack, the primary one, is under your control but your ability to make the next attack is not. I understand that there IS an element of volition about hitting a second target if the first attack is successful but this is a reduced form of volition. There are gradations of NCC, this is probably only 1/4 or 1/2 and ONLY on the cost of area effect. Doc

I would add a NCC limitation to the area effect element of the attack. If it is going to emulate then it only allows a second minion to be attacked if the first is hit, incapacitated and the second minion is adjacent to the first etc etc. Each attack is dependent on the success of the previous one. As such, it is not within the characters gift to attack all of the minions at once.

Again, an imposition of SFX that is not entirely necessary. As GM, once the "can phase through solid objects" is taken off the table, I would be content for attacks to deflect off the character, almost lensing. I do think you are focussing on the NAME of the mechanic rather than the EFFECT. It is unlikely that you do this with most other mechanics and indeed I have seen most if not all of you come up with extremely creative ways of using the toolbox. It is why I have stuck around so long. My biggest struggle has been getting my players to play their powers rather than the mess of numbers on the character sheet. I do not want them to think " Oh, he is desolid, I will use my affect desolid attack next time". I want them to think "Nothing seems to affect him, I wonder if my intense plasma ray would do it". I actually hate affect desolid, in my games no affect desolid will be allowed to blanket hit every SFX of desolid. I make my players consider why their power affects a desolid character and what kind of SFX of desolid it might not work against. Doc

Is this the exception that proves the rule?? To me, all the powers in the book are simply mechanics that have SFX wrapped round them. Desolid as a mechanic means that the character takes no damage from attacks unless they are affect desolid, mental or of a reasonably common group. It also allows a character to pass through solid objects. If you take that last bit away, it is pretty reminiscent of Superman. Almost nothing hurts him unless it is mental or magic or kryptonite. Doc

I ran a super-agents game a long time ago. Each agent had one special power, one dimensional stuff. We had an agent that could run like the wind, one that could fly, one that could go invisible and one that was invulnerable. It was surprising what worked the way the players thought it would and what did not. 🙂 The invulnerable character ended up crashing a car into a ravine and being stuck in the wreckage while the car filled up with water. We had a bit of a long discussion on whether invulnerability was protection from drowning. It was an interesting campaign even if just to highlight how we tend to round characters out in a point buy system... Doc

How committed are you to no damage? Obviously the initial attack will do no damage but if the person is knocked back into a wall. Would that do damage? There is also the question of whether you want people knocked back to be on their feet or have the potential of ending up prone?

We have moved to Tabletop Arena for boardgames. Not a huge selection of games but made to play games rather than replicate a tabletop experience. We have had a blast. on roleplay we have gone down the roll20/Discord route. I kind of hate Discord but have been using that on my phone to chat while using the laptop and a spare monitor for the roleplay and it has worked pretty well. The biggest issue we have identified is the inclination to put too much work into making the play interface as good as it could be; far in excess of anything we seek to achieve at in person games. That can, counter-intuitively, put the technology between the players and the game experience... Sometimes you need to just let it flow - voices and few handouts on the screen with almost everything else imagined. There are times where a battlemat is useful - but you can quickly sketch something on the screen and use a few icons to manage the game needs. Doesn't ALWAYS have to look beautiful. Doc