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Post by takewithfood on Feb 13, 2009 23:09:33 GMT -5
Dio, I understand and agree with that sentiment. However, #1 doesn't limit creative freedom as far as I see it. There's nothing creative about buying a big Modifier and letting it do all the work.
I think of it this way: Wolverine has Claws 3. If all he does is put Claws 3 into his Close Combat box, it's almost saying that his claws are literally doing all the work. He should have to put some effort into the box to use them properly. Even just 1 stone of effort shouldn't be enough.
We're just trying to prevent people from buying giant Modifiers and only investing a couple measly stones. It's lazy, boring, and frankly very unheroic. lol
~TWF
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Post by vjcsmoke on Feb 13, 2009 23:18:03 GMT -5
I could be convinced to relax this rule to your modifier may be no higher than your AN instead. However since we seem to be trying to reduce free stones, see the armed weapons thread, limiting to half AN might be necessary to keep things in relative balance to each other.
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Post by takewithfood on Feb 13, 2009 23:22:01 GMT -5
I think I have higher faith in GMs than most people. I don't hesitate to look at a CAD and fire off a PM saying "I love the concept, x, y, and z are great, but holy smokes, that modifier has to shrink." That's part of what being a good GM is about.
We still need a rule for applying the Modifier to more than one Action, just in case. Someone might have a modifier that applies both to Telekinesis and Force Field or something. I was suggesting that you build the Modifier based on the highest cost Action, and add +1 CL or +2 CL. Something like that.
~TWF
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Post by Neros on Feb 14, 2009 7:37:53 GMT -5
Im rather confused how the tier thing works..
But if Modifiers and Close Combat won't help overcome difficulty, I think there should be set one for close combat as well (somehow).. As vjcsmoke illustrated, you could in essence buy a close combat of 1 and a modifier of 9 and be hardcore at beating people up with you're very limited skills.. The same can be said about Ability bonus's.. You might have 1 in close combat and 10 in strength, so even though you have more or less no combat experience at all, you are able to beat even the most experienced fighter (AN 6 for example)...
What about breaking stuff with Close combat and Toughness? A wall has a difficulty of 4 (or so) which means you need Strength 4 to break it.. But if you have Strength 2 and Close Combat 6 you can easily break down the wall..
But unfortunately, its messy to throw in a difficulty
All this is written down in a rush, so i might have come up with the thoughts abit to fast..
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Post by Dionon on Feb 14, 2009 9:50:53 GMT -5
See... I don't agree that modifiers shouldn't be allowed to overcome difficulty... We've seen Wolverine put minimum effort in and use his claws to cut through walls/steel doors. What people are forgetting is that this game should be about free creation, not a set of hard rules that turns this into the diceless DnD.
I'm not saying that the ideas here are that bad. I just say that we should examine how often you get someone who actually goes out and buys a super high modifier without some logical and well thought out explaination.
And yes, I know "anything can be justified" but what I'm saying is... I've been accused of being on the power gamer side of things, but I can tell you, I don't think I've had a modifier to combat over a 4, except for ONE character who was literally built to make 6 attacks around... so he could get +1 targeting to each attack...
We shouldn't let our fear of unbalance force us to overbalance this new system, or else it's going to be something that no one is going to want to play.
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Post by vjcsmoke on Feb 14, 2009 11:54:53 GMT -5
Modifiers should be factored in to overcome difficulty when it makes sense. Adamantium Claws + STR to break down a door is a good example of that. The problem is that we need to be very clear about when that will be allowed or you will get some gray areas that confuse people. That would put us right back at 1.0 confusion level.
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Post by takewithfood on Feb 14, 2009 11:58:44 GMT -5
I think I'm in agreement with Dio: It isn't as easy as saying that modifiers can't ever help meet Difficulty. It's heavily, heavily situational. I'm happy to write some common examples, but even those will always be changed by context in an actual game.
For example (I've done this example like 5 times now) Cyclops has Strength 2, Close Combat 5, and he wants to knock down a steel door. The GM decides that the steel door has a hardness of 6 (see the D&R chart). Cyclops COULD put up to 7 stones in Close Combat, but the GM has to ask his/herself: does it make sense that a guy with Str 2 can punch through a steel door? No matter how skilled he is, Cyclops is just an ordinary, athletic guy. As a GM I would decide that only Cyclops' Strength would apply to knocking down a door. I might give him a +1 sit mod if he describes it well (taking a running start, putting his shoulder into it) but that's about it. It still wouldn't be enough.
Beast wants to get through the same door. He has Str 5 and Close Combat 5 too. His Str 5 alone isn't good enough to break down the door either. Even if we give him a +1 Claws modifier, it doesn't make much sense that his claws would allow him to slice and dice the door - they're not harder than steel. But again, with a good description and a situational modifier, he might have enough to beat the difficulty.
Finally, Wolverine has Strength 4, but he also has +3 Adamantium claws that are armor penetrating. Because they're armor penetrating, I'd easily allow them to overcome the door's difficulty. NOW, there are a couple different ways you could rule this. You could let him apply his Strength, Close Combat AND Claws against the Resistance, or you might decide that his Strength doesn't help him at all (imagine cutting a wall made of warm butter with a hot knife: is strength really going to help you?). If its a really, really thick door, you might even argue that his Close Combat skill isn't helping - he just has to hack his way at it with his Claws modifier only until he practically burrows through. It's up to the GM.
We can't come up with rules for every possible situation. As a GM I try to imagine possible scenarios when setting up a game, and jot down some rules like (Door is Dif 6; strength only to knock down, or str+claws for Wolverine), assuming I know Wolverine is in the party. I can't anticipate everything the players might do, however: if they decide to blast their way in through the ceiling, I'll have to decide how difficult that would be and come up with rules on the fly. (This is why I prefer online gaming.. I can take all day to think about if I really need to.)
~TWF
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Post by vjcsmoke on Feb 14, 2009 12:09:56 GMT -5
Making things up on the fly may all be well and fine... A lot of GMs have to do this when they encounter something that isn't explicitly handled by the rules. But I believe we need to eliminated as many gray areas as possible so GMs won't have to do this. And so that players can understand what will work, what won't work, and why. There's nothing more frustrating than spending a lot of stones in an action and being told it just doesn't work because the GM decides that is how it should be.
Ideally GM Fiat should only be pulled when A) It's absolutely necessary to maintain the story or B) It's not covered by the rules so he has to resolve it one way or another. Just ignoring a player's action is never a satisfying resolution for the player.
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Post by Neros on Feb 14, 2009 12:21:52 GMT -5
Hmm.. What if cyclops (or another guy since cyc has a optic blast) punched a guy made of Steel (Toughness 6)? He could overcome his defense, but could he harm him since he don't have the strength to it? Im pretty sure this is one of those situations where you've suppose to throw in a nice description, but I can't really see how he would be able to "logical" harm the guy..
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Post by takewithfood on Feb 14, 2009 12:45:02 GMT -5
I'm all in favour of coming up with some strong guidelines for common situations. Breaking things and lifting things are incredibly common. What else comes to mind? Hmm.. What if cyclops (or another guy since cyc has a optic blast) punched a guy made of Steel (Toughness 6)? He could overcome his defense, but could he harm him since he don't have the strength to it? Im pretty sure this is one of those situations where you've suppose to throw in a nice description, but I can't really see how he would be able to "logical" harm the guy.. Neros, you took me too literally. Cyclops' Optic Blast is a totally different mechanic. Because it represents raw force, I'd absolutely let someone use the Optic Blast to overcome difficulty. Cyclops blasts through things all the time - it's a no-brainer. And there is a difference between hurting someone made of steel and ripping him to shreds/shattering him with your bare hands, no? If you want to take the mechanic to extremes, imagine a Str 1 woman who is 5 feet tall and weighs 90 pounds. She's been through intense army training as well as gaining experience as a criem fighter, and has Close Combat 5 with specialties including knife fighting, swords, jujutsu, tae kwon do and karate. She can put 6 stones in her Close Combat.. but should she be able to rip her way into a tank? Or knock down a steel wall? With her bare hands? Strength is the limiting factor, though some modifiers may or may not apply. ~TWF
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Post by Neros on Feb 14, 2009 13:47:18 GMT -5
So there should be made a couple more types of modifiers.. Those that will help you overcome Difficulty and those that don't...
You are right that theres a difference from hurting someone made of steel and shredding/shattering/breaking someone made of steel.. But im not saying that someone should be allowed to (which wasent described in the old system.. If you had the stones to beat the difficulty, you can do it)..
But at the moment, i can't really think of any other situations..
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Post by takewithfood on Feb 14, 2009 13:54:11 GMT -5
So there should be made a couple more types of modifiers.. Those that will help you overcome Difficulty and those that don't... It isn't even that simple, and that's part of my point. Even if you say that Claws are helpful in overcoming the difficulty of cutting through a steel wall, they might not be of any help in some other situation. What if you were using Close Combat to kick a boulder up a hill or something. Claws shouldn't help you overcome the difficulty of that kind of task. There is no way I can conceive of to put a hard rule in place that solves everything. Context is nearly infinite and we can't always account for it. It's up to the GM - the best we can do is offer guidelines for common situations such as breaking and lifting. ~TWF
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Post by Neros on Feb 14, 2009 14:00:34 GMT -5
Agreed.. And as said, we should give some guidelines.. Not just.... Well... Not write it as Marvel did.. As said, they just made some rules and never explained them
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Post by Dionon on Feb 14, 2009 14:42:02 GMT -5
Guidelines are fine.... But what's been suggested is a hard and fast rule. "You can't do this..." "You can't have that"
How bout we loosen up a little, and get breath away our fears...
Everyone now... In through the nose...
Out through the mouth.... Wooosaaaaa
Now repeat
In through the nose...
Out through the mouth.... Wooosaaaaa
Good..
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Post by Neros on Nov 3, 2009 13:23:53 GMT -5
*Raises hand* A couple questions have come up about this modifier while looking at some of the CADs I've recieved for my game, which might be a good idea to mention:
1. When the Generic Modifier modifiers something which has a weapon modifier.... Liiike Close and Range Combat.. Would it stack with the weapons which the character uses?
2. Would the Generic Modifier add to both actions if they are used at the same time? Like if you had one that modified Flight and Force Blast, would it be able to modify both? If you had Generic Modifier: 3, spend 3 stones in each action, would each of them get 3 extra stones or would it have to be "shared" among them?
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