Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

A place to discuss game rules, homebrew systems and the like.
User avatar
Ken
Posts: 3460
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 10:40 pm
Location: Sycalb, Madiganistan

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Ken »

jmucchiello wrote: Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:03 am Presence is the interaction ability. Every human interaction can be characterized as deception, intimidation or persuasion. (Or instruction, but that's an Intellect skill) When a GM says make a Presence check, it is perfectly reasonable to ask why Deceive, Intimidate or Persuade would NOT apply because all interaction is covered by those three verbs.

Additionally, most people should never be good at all three methods of interaction. Such a super charismatic person should be extremely rare.

Presence just costs too much.
There is an ability Presence has that is not covered by deception, intimidation or persuasion: personal magnetism. When someone simply walks into a room, and people start paying attention to the person before he or she even opens his or her mouth. It is similar to using Persuasion to convince people to pay attention, I suppose, but it is usually an unconscious, passive thing.*

Everyone has it, to a limited degree. But it isn't noticeable unless it's exceptional. When it's very low, you get the person who enters the room and it feels like two people left. When its very high, you get the person in the crowd everyone is paying attention to whether speaking with her or not. I know people who are both. This is what the book means when they say "force of personality when a specific skill doesn't apply."

And you're right, "most people should never be good at all three methods of interaction. Such a super charismatic person should be extremely rare." And moreover, someone good at all three and having a high personal magnetism too? Rarer still.

So, at 1 point per two ranks, Deception, Intimidation or Persuasion together cost less than Presence. Which means that a point conscious player will buy those up, rather than just jacking up Presence. It helps keep super charismatic people extremely rare. You want to be good at deception, intimidation or persuasion, AND the center of attention in any room you enter? You pay more than if you're JUST good at deception, intimidation or persuasion.
* - According to pop-culture legend, Norma Jean Baker apparently possessed "Enhanced Presence" Sustained. She could walk around unnoticed, but she could turn on her Enhanced Presence and become Marilyn.
My Amazing Woman: a super-hero romantic comedy podcast.

When the most powerful super hero on Earth marries an ordinary man, hilarity ensues.
jmucchiello
Posts: 3815
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2019 7:59 pm

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by jmucchiello »

* - According to pop-culture legend, Norma Jean Baker apparently possessed "Enhanced Presence" Sustained. She could walk around unnoticed, but she could turn on her Enhanced Presence and become Marilyn.
That's an Enhanced Trait, aka a superpower, not base Presence. I bet she could even extra effort her Presence.
RainOnTheSun
Posts: 1152
Joined: Wed May 03, 2017 7:20 am

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by RainOnTheSun »

Here's a thought for people like me who have an issue with Presence only having three dedicated skills: remove the Daze and Fascinate advantages. They're a skill now. Call it Charm, or Magnetism, or Charisma, or whatever you like. It's your ability to capture people's attention. Suddenly it's more difficult to use a single social skill for all your Presence-based needs, and buying up the ability rank itself is a little more valuable.
User avatar
Ken
Posts: 3460
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 10:40 pm
Location: Sycalb, Madiganistan

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Ken »

jmucchiello wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 2:33 am
* - According to pop-culture legend, Norma Jean Baker apparently possessed "Enhanced Presence" Sustained. She could walk around unnoticed, but she could turn on her Enhanced Presence and become Marilyn.
That's an Enhanced Trait, aka a superpower, not base Presence. I bet she could even extra effort her Presence.
I'm sure she could, and yes, it's a power. That's why I called it Enhanced Presence, sustained.
My Amazing Woman: a super-hero romantic comedy podcast.

When the most powerful super hero on Earth marries an ordinary man, hilarity ensues.
theVoidWatches
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2020 2:51 am
Contact:

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by theVoidWatches »

Woodclaw wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:12 pm I would argue that the general problem with all Mental senses (and some effects by extension) is that the game doesn't provide a good framework to start with.
Visual senses are by default Ranged, Accurate and Acute.
Auditory senses are Acute, Ranged and Radius.
Etc.
With mental senses we don't have a frame of reference. This should mean that a default mental sense should have no modifier at all, but this seem counterintuitive given the usual representation of these powers in the comics.
This isn't true - the game does explain what the base mental sense is:
In Mutants & Masterminds terms, the “sixth sense” or mental sense type is fairly crude in normal humans, limited essentially to interactions with the Insight skill and awareness of mental effects used directly on you. Thus it is close range and has none of the Sense qualities.
By default, you have a mental sense that isn't ranged, acute, radius, or accurate, but which does pick up when mental effects are used on you - although as it isn't acute or accurate, you can't tell what the effect is, or from where.
Hi, you can call me Void. I prefer she/her or they/them pronouns, please. Yes, "they" is a singular pronoun. I write a superhero webserial called Paternum - check it out!
FuzzyBoots
Posts: 2396
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:20 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by FuzzyBoots »

theVoidWatches wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:59 am By default, you have a mental sense that isn't ranged, acute, radius, or accurate, but which does pick up when mental effects are used on you - although as it isn't acute or accurate, you can't tell what the effect is, or from where.
{nods} Which argues that anything that uses the Mental sense doesn't start with much (not that the book ever says that added senses get to piggy-back off of the existing ones). It does still make it harder to adjudicate. What naturally blocks "mental" sense? What naturally obscures it? Since it's thoughts, do we give people a chance to read emotions in what they see or do they need acute, the way that we can hear emotions, and see them, but generally can't smell them?

Honestly, the common use of "Danger Sense (Mental)" bugs me... I know it's based off of characters like Spider-Man who just get a feeling, but if Mental is only Personal...
User avatar
Woodclaw
Posts: 1462
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2017 8:05 pm
Location: Como, Italy

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Woodclaw »

theVoidWatches wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:59 am
Woodclaw wrote: Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:12 pm I would argue that the general problem with all Mental senses (and some effects by extension) is that the game doesn't provide a good framework to start with.
Visual senses are by default Ranged, Accurate and Acute.
Auditory senses are Acute, Ranged and Radius.
Etc.
With mental senses we don't have a frame of reference. This should mean that a default mental sense should have no modifier at all, but this seem counterintuitive given the usual representation of these powers in the comics.
This isn't true - the game does explain what the base mental sense is:
In Mutants & Masterminds terms, the “sixth sense” or mental sense type is fairly crude in normal humans, limited essentially to interactions with the Insight skill and awareness of mental effects used directly on you. Thus it is close range and has none of the Sense qualities.
By default, you have a mental sense that isn't ranged, acute, radius, or accurate, but which does pick up when mental effects are used on you - although as it isn't acute or accurate, you can't tell what the effect is, or from where.
That's the problem: by default mental sense are insanely wonky. Since they have no trait at all you can't discern the relative position of any mental-perceivable effect, nor who used it on you and since they're not radial you can only use them within a limited area (usually your front). As a result they're insanely limited and make building anything out of them insanely pricy.
FuzzyBoots wrote: Sun Nov 29, 2020 5:33 am {nods} Which argues that anything that uses the Mental sense doesn't start with much (not that the book ever says that added senses get to piggy-back off of the existing ones). It does still make it harder to adjudicate. What naturally blocks "mental" sense? What naturally obscures it? Since it's thoughts, do we give people a chance to read emotions in what they see or do they need acute, the way that we can hear emotions, and see them, but generally can't smell them?

Honestly, the common use of "Danger Sense (Mental)" bugs me... I know it's based off of characters like Spider-Man who just get a feeling, but if Mental is only Personal...
That's exactly the point. The handbooks usually build Danger Sense as a single upgrade, but to make it work Spidey style you should add Accurate, Radius and Ranged at the very least.
"You're right. Sorry. Holy shit," I breathed, "heckhounds.”

WareHouse W (main build thread for M&M)
User avatar
Davies
Posts: 5081
Joined: Thu Mar 23, 2017 10:37 pm
Location: Edmonton, AB

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Davies »

This is a poorly developed thought at best, but I was re-reading the Mayfar DC Heroes game, and I noticed that it, like M&M, had three "Charisma" skills -- but a different three. It had Intimidation and Persuasion, but its third skill was Interrogation, the skill of obtaining information. (Deception, interestingly, could be accomplished with all three of these, using the Bluff maneuver.)

Would separating out Interrogation into its own skill make sense in M&M? And possibly combining it with the Gather Information function of Investigation?
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
RainOnTheSun
Posts: 1152
Joined: Wed May 03, 2017 7:20 am

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by RainOnTheSun »

Considering that Gather Information was a charisma skill in 2E, it seems reasonable.
greycrusader
Posts: 1179
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:25 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by greycrusader »

Misfit Studios put out an M&M sourcebook, A Better Mousetrap, which expanded considerably on skills and included an Interrogation/Gather Info skill, appropriate for Darknight Detectives and Iron Age vigilante types. They even had an Indoctrination skill, which I suppose goes to another type of Presence-based interaction, convincing others of new, even opposing ideas. Technically I suppose that could simply be several degrees of success on a Persuasion check.

Perhaps something akin to a Leadership skill should also exist (or maybe Command, to differentiate it from the advantage), reflecting personal charisma, the ability to have others follow your direction.

All my best.
User avatar
Davies
Posts: 5081
Joined: Thu Mar 23, 2017 10:37 pm
Location: Edmonton, AB

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Davies »

greycrusader wrote: Mon Dec 14, 2020 4:19 am Misfit Studios put out an M&M sourcebook, A Better Mousetrap,
Huh. I actually own that in PDF (bought as part of a package deal) and have just never had the opportunity to read it. Something else to do while I'm on my break.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
User avatar
squirrelly-sama
Posts: 611
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2018 2:07 am

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by squirrelly-sama »

Davies wrote: Sun Dec 13, 2020 12:34 am This is a poorly developed thought at best, but I was re-reading the Mayfar DC Heroes game, and I noticed that it, like M&M, had three "Charisma" skills -- but a different three. It had Intimidation and Persuasion, but its third skill was Interrogation, the skill of obtaining information. (Deception, interestingly, could be accomplished with all three of these, using the Bluff maneuver.)

Would separating out Interrogation into its own skill make sense in M&M? And possibly combining it with the Gather Information function of Investigation?
Interrogation sounds like just a function of the other skills rather than it's own skill. Like tricking info out of someone (deception), threatening it out of them (Intimidation), or just being charming enough to make the guy like you enough to spill (Persuasion)

Presence should probably just be 2 skills, Deception and Persuasion and the Will save. Awareness can be combined into Intellect with most of Intellect's trained skills just being dropped and treated as Expertise. Being Intimidating would be an Advantage like being Attractive.
Harnos
Posts: 499
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:03 am

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Harnos »

That is a very comprehensive analysis on Affliction, thank you.

I think we can use the progression of 2e Mind Control power to make the Affliction effects last more. The time interval to roll for save should go one time-rank up the Ranks and Measures Table after every failed save.

For example; the target failed his will save against Mind Control Affliction in the first round, became compelled and then he failed his save again to overcome the effect in the second round. Now the third save can only be rolled two rounds (12 seconds, time rank 1) after the second save. Fourth save will come 5 rounds later (time rank 2) after third and so on. This way, the attacker PC's turn is not be wasted but also if a PC is afflicted, he doesn't have to stay useless for all the combat.

1st round: Save to resist.
2nd round: Save to overcome.
4th round: Save to overcome.
9th round: Save to overcome

This can go on or be limited to 1 minute.


That process can apply to third degree of effect as well. The second save will come after two minutes more, third after four minutes more, etc. So effects that we want to be longer lasting can stay for a while. If we want some effect to be permanent, like a Medusa's death gaze, we can house rule that after 5 failed saves the victim stays afflicted forever.

If we want it to be more potent, DC can be calculated as 12+ Affliction rank instead of 10 + Affliction rank. But I am not sure if that is necessary. It can be quite dangerous with Cumulative extra. Most PL 10 PCs would have a hard time against a 10 rank Affliction.
User avatar
squirrelly-sama
Posts: 611
Joined: Thu Oct 11, 2018 2:07 am

Power Talk: Concealment

Post by squirrelly-sama »

CONCEALMENT (SENSORY)
Action: Free • Range: Personal • Duration: Sustained • Cost: 2 points per rank
You gain total concealment from a particular sense while this effect is active, although you are still detectable to other senses (even other senses of the same sense type; so you could have full concealment against normal sight, but not infravision or any other sense in the sight sense type). Each additional rank gives you concealment from another sense; two ranks give you concealment for an entire sense type. See Concealment for full effects.
Concealment from visual senses costs double (2 ranks for one visual sense, 4 ranks for all visual senses). You cannot have concealment from tactile senses, since that requires being incorporeal (see Insubstantial effect). So with Concealment 5, you can have total concealment from all visual senses (4 ranks) and normal hearing (1 rank), for example. With Concealment 10 you have total concealment from all sense types other than tactile.

EXTRAS
Affects Others: This modifier allows you to grant Concealment to others while you are touching them, or at range, if you also apply the Range modifier. +1 cost per rank.
Area: Concealment with Affects Others (previously) or attack (immediately following) may have this extra, affecting everything in the area. To only affect some targets in the area, apply the Selective modifier as well. +1 cost per rank.
Attack: Use this extra for a Concealment effect you can impose on others (whether they want to be concealed or not). An invisibility ray, for example, is a Visual Concealment Attack, while a field of darkness is a Burst Area Visual Concealment Attack. +0 cost per rank.
Precise: You can vary your Concealment at will as a free action: going from total to partial to no concealment, concealing some parts and not others, or anywhere in-between. If your Concealment affects multiple senses, you can also choose to affect some of those senses and not others. Concealment is normally all-or-nothing: either you are concealed to the full amount of your effect, or you’re not. Flat +1 point.

FLAWS
Blending: You “blend” into the background. Your Concealment only functions as long as you move no faster than your (ground speed rank –1), since your blending can’t adapt faster than that. -1 cost per rank.
Limited: Your Concealment only works under certain conditions, such as in fog, shadows, or in urban locales. One example is Limited to Machines, where your Concealment only fools senses with a technological descriptor. -1 cost per rank.
Partial: Your effect provides partial rather than total concealment (see Concealment). -1 cost per rank.
Passive: Your Concealment only lasts until you do something requiring an attack or effect check on your part, at which point it stops working until you reactivate it, which you may do on the following round. -1 cost per rank.
Resistible: Your Concealment offers a resistance check (chose a defense when the flaw is applied) for anyone aware of your presence and actively looking for you. Concealment Resistible by Will may represent some sort of mental illusion effect. -1 cost per rank.

CONCEALMENT AND PERCEPTION RANGE
Perception range effects must accurately perceive a target in order to affect it. This generally means you cannot target subjects with total concealment from your accurate senses with perception range effects. Thus, foes with Visual Concealment (the most common accurate sense) can be quite effective against characters relying on perception range attacks, unless the attacker has an unusual accurate sense to circumvent the Concealment. This is one reason Visual Concealment costs extra.
At the Gamemaster’s discretion, a successful Perception check to accurately locate a target with an acute sense may allow you to use perception range effects on that target; however, the target still benefits from concealment, granting a +5 circumstance bonus to resistance against the effect.

___________________

Concealment is the power to hide one's presence from being detected or being observed. It has the very obvious use for sneaking around unseen but also has a lot of additional uses. The benefits this power gives are numerous, some are directly expressed mechanically, a few are implicit in how the system works but aren't really directly stated by the effect, and a a lot are just logically extracted from how the things would go down when dealing with an undetectable enemy. This effect is considered one of the most power in MnM, and more specifically one of the more standout "Too much from too little" powers that give incredible benefits for very little investment.

Taking a Closer Look at Concealment
Lets break down what you get when you buy concealment. While the power is simple in theory there's a lot more to unpack than what it would seem. When you are under the effects of Concealment you become completely undetectable to the specific sense type you have bought for this effect. There is no non-powered way to observe someone under the effects of concealment with the sense in question, so if you are invisible no rank of perception skill will let someone see you. There has been some confusion on there being a DC20 check to detect someone who is concealed but this is false, and most likely just the rules about Morph which allows such an insight check, so the only way to even be aware of the presence of a Concealed person is to rely on other senses that they are not concealed against. There are ways to penetrate concealment or work around it, but they require powers which are often too niche to justify or can be worked around by just getting more concealment. The sense power "Counter Concealment" allows one to just ignore concealment of a specific descriptor while you can buy up benefits for other senses to use them in place of a compromised one.

What senses you are concealed from depend on what you buy when making the power and are split up between "normal" and exotic parallels covering Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Other. It notable does not stop tactile detection which is odd, as it says that should be covered by insubstantial but ignores things like just being able to plant things on people or pickpocket them without them feeling it not really being covered by that power. So, if you choose to only be concealed against normal vision you can still be detectable by something like infrared vision or some form of enhanced hearing. Essentially the effect is all-or-nothing, no checks just counters. This in effect makes total concealment all the more powerful as the only counterplay that is mechanically available is just having a sense that is immune to it.

In terms of mechanics what you get from Concealment is a combination of benefits. For one, it's essentially an autosuccess on stealth provided your opponents do not have the rare counter sensory powers to invalidate it. Normal vision and hearing is really all it takes to just become completely undetectable to 99% of opponents. In addition to this you also gain the benefits of Total Concealment as found in the environmental factors section of the core rules.
Spoiler
CONCEALMENT

To attack a target, you first have to have some idea of where to aim your attack. If you can perceive something with an accurate sense (such as sight) then you can target it with an attack. If you cannot clearly perceive the target, then it has concealment from you.

Partial Concealment applies a –2 circumstance penalty to your attack check for not being able to clearly perceive your target. It includes conditions like dim lighting, foli-age, heavy precipitation, fog, smoke, and the like.

Total Concealment applies a –5 circumstance penalty to your attack check for not being able to perceive the target at all, presuming the attacker even knows (or guesses) the right area to target. It includes conditions like total darkness, heavy smoke or fog, and so forth.
What this means is that any attacks against a concealed target are given a very harsh -5 penalty to hit. Probably worse however is that the description points out you still need to know that you're even attacking in the right area to begin with. So it's not just firing blindly in a random direction and only having a -5 to hit, you have to pick a random spot first and if that happens to be where the target is then you get a chance to hit at a -5 penalty. One of those is a simple but predictable reduction to your accuracy that can be accounted for, the second is rolling the dice for a chance to roll loaded dice.

It also makes you immune to Perception Range effects baring specific GM allowances. Not always that useful given the rarity of that modifier in builds but a nice little bonus.

With the direct mechanical benefits out of the way we can move onto the implicit and logical advantages you gain from being concealed. Due to being able to pretty much auto-succeed on stealth even when in direct line of sight it can be argued that you can continuously launch surprise attacks on an opponent while remaining concealed as they have no way of knowing when, how, or where you are going to attack. There's the limitations of detection works and relations to non-standard senses as at what point should you be able to just determine someone is nearby if you can't hear or see them? Can you smell them? Feel their body heat in a cold place? Feel the slight air movements as they move around you? At what penalty, because of course it's unlikely anyone would normally pay attention to those details unless it was very noticeable. You can initiate the first strike, you can guarantee constant critical attacks, and you can act while your opponents do not as they are unaware of the need to perform actions or active checks.

So in addition to being a great utility power, effectively replacing a skill, concealment also grants some incredible combat benefits. It is at the very least an effective +5 to your active defenses which plays merry hell with PL. Concealment breaks a lot of fundamental mechanics and balancing rules quite hard. You get massive defensive bonuses, you can generally hit harder due to critical hits and surprise attacks, and can even mess with the action economy by performing actions before the opponents get a chance to realize you are doing anything. It basically grants the user the ability to move and act with near impunity as no one can be expected to realistically move against them until the concealed person shows their hand.

The Extras
Concealment has some unique modifiers, most of which are meant to limit it's effectiveness.

Affects Others is somewhat interesting as it removes any ambiguity on how it works, limiting the effect to only while in direct contact with the target and requiring the ranged modifier to grant and maintain the effect at a distance. Precise is somewhat useful, if a little niche, granting much more control over the effect and facilitating better coordination and communication with allies without needing to drop the power. A bit odd is the lack of a sort of "Selective" modifier that lets you become invisible only to specific individuals.

Blending is a flaw that really isn't. This modifier makes your Invisibility only work by hindering yourself. As in the status effect Hindered, probably the most underwhelming status in the game as it does next to nothing. It halves your ground speed, not the ranks but your overall speed, meaning it's just a -1 to speed ranks. What this means is that if you have a concealed character who can normally move at Speed 8, they can be invisible while just moving at speed 7 which in most cases is not really that much of a difference. The only people this limitation actually hurts is new players who didn't know to invest in a bit of mobility or ranged attacks when designing characters.

Partial is an interesting one. From the way it looks it should basically just ruin the entire power as your character is no longer undetectable and can now be seen, if indistinctly. And depending on the interpretation of the Concealment rules in the Running the Game section than that's totally what happens. However the wording is a bit vague and roundabout, giving some implication that even being partially concealed will prevent you from being directly targeted by an accurate sense. Likewise the effect itself doesn't really elaborate on what this means in terms of stealth, as the Concealment rules it refers too only deals with attempting to attack concealed targets.

Passive is probably the most balanced modifier of the bunch. You have to drop your Concealment if you want to do something generally useful outside of observing things. It doesn't really state if this drop is before or after you make the checks, though before is probably the more limiting of the two as it can make it harder to be sneaky by relying totally on Concealment or trying to cheese Concealed fighting to launch surprise attacks. Strangely there's no parallel limitation that causes the effect to drop when you make a resistance check which would equally balancing in making it easier to deal with those cheesing Concealment mechanics on the defensive side.

Resistible is the last notable modifier and is rather straightforward. Sadly it is also a bit lacking in detail on how it works. It seems to require the target be aware you're there to begin making the checks which may make it a bit too weak as a limitation. It also doesn't list the DC for the check as is often the case with other "Resistible" modifiers. The assumption is 10+Ranks, which kinda sucks since that only makes the most powerful Concealment harder to detect while the more balanced ones are basically guaranteed to be resisted on the first check. There's also no indication on when you apply the check. Is it just by being in the area? When someone would otherwise see you? Just the moment they suspect something is amiss? This is probably intentional to let GMs and players flavor the effect as they wished, but it's something to note on what you need to keep in mind with these modifiers.

Dealing With Concealment
There is no denying just how powerful Concealment is as an Effect. It can be very intimidating to handle for GMs and players. It allows a lot of potential for exploitation, can easily destroy how some encounters are dealt with, and can completely destroy a campaign just on accident by a player being in the wrong place at the right time. Even if you aren't dealing with people intentionally trying to abuse it's benefits just normal and logical usage of the power can screw up plans and plots for not taking into account the fact a PC can theoretically be in an important location with no one realizing it and do whatever they want. Some GM's just ban or restrict Concealment heavily, making it so they don't have to worry about dealing with PCs using the effect outside of very controlled conditions. Others inflate the price, making it less likely to appear and limiting the PC who wants to buy it so they are less likely to do something campaign destroying like one-shotting the BBEG since they managed to sneak into his bedroom and found him sitting on the toilet. Others just nerf the hell out of Concealment by removing or weakening its various benefits making it much less powerful or reliable overall.

To each there own, it's a very hard power to balance against correctly since it gives such a variety of benefits. If it's a choice between spending hours trying to balance for the team ninja blitzing to the end of the villains lair to steal back the magic doorknobs or using that time to come up with a better campaign overall it's an obvious decision. But still, there are options if you don't want to just come down hard on the effect unilaterally.

There's two main ways that Concealment is used that can cause major problems. Fighting well above your PL and exploring places you should not be able to access at that point.

For fights there's the obvious ways to deal with an invisible opponent. While mechanically there's no Perception checks to locate or detect a Concealed opponent this is often ignored. Narrative convention sort of dictates that no mater how hidden the character there's always some crippling flaw in their concealment that when discovered basically renders the power worthless. Often this is done in the form of just throwing something on the target that you can see letting you target them and know where they are, other times it's tracks left on the floor or how the opponent disturbs their environment while sneaking around. Sometimes that's too much of a bother and there's just an asspull of "I relied on my instincts to detect you!" or the like where there's just some excuse of noticing them and knowing where they are despite not having special sensory powers. This is all well and good in moderation, mixing up fights, emphasizing the threat of certain boss characters, and keeping the PC on their toes, it sorta starts to become much less welcome after the 5th evil general just so happened to notice the PC stepping on a single random leaf wrong and deduced they were going for a backstab.

That's how you get salty players complaining that you're ruining their whole shtick. And honestly, that's fair. Ninja/assassin who fights with hit and run sneak attacks is a legitimate character concept and it's got to feel awful if after putting in the work to build that character they constantly find their efforts negated while the rest of the party can just whale on the bad guy willy nilly.

Probably the easiest way to deal with this is... just let them. Not all the time, mind, but often enough they feel like their design choices work and weren't a waste. You have a miniboss set up and the Ninja is about to sneak up behind them and KO them with a sneaky power attack? Well, is that miniboss really needed? Is it just there for filler or a token fight? Just there to soften the PCs a bit? No actual relevance to the plot? Whelp, just let him get ice'd, save some time, make the PC feel rewarded and let the party know their decisions and actions do matter and aren't just going to arbitrarily succeed or fail to facilitate the plot or a nebulous concept of fairness. You can design new fights as needed around the Concealed fighter, giving them some opponents to focus on while the party deals with others that they can't, make rival fighters that sort of counter them but have a weakness that can let the PC beat them using their concealment in a creative or unique way, or make opponents tough enough to survive the sneak attacks but still be noticeably hampered from it letting the PC feel like they did manage to contribute to the fight with their skill set.

The Concealed explorers are probably the more troublesome to deal with if they manage to screw things up. These are the scouts that enter the building and try and find every clue and get all the information they can. They can easily sneak into important locations and potentially just ruin a while dungeon crawl sort of session by finding all the traps or discovering where the thing they're looking for is hidden if not just steal it back. They can play havoc with Infosec by relaying important information and can sequence break things by reaching the final room by bypassing everything else. Like before you can always bullshit up ways to make the scout detectable but at that point you're just over compensating, turning the overpowered Concealment effect into something that's effectively useless. Again, moderation is key. There may be some ways to detect the scout but it's not everywhere and it's not fool proof. Find ways to organically lead the scout in one direction and not another, simply having some doors opened and others closed is a great way to guide them down a path. Hide some rewards for them, good info, cool loot, or just something amusing they'd like so that they have a reason to explore certain sections and feel like they are being useful. And lastly use physical barriers to abstract the really important locations, things they can't just bypass on their own and would need help from some of the rest of the party. It's not their stealth that failed them, they just don't have the niche skills or powers needed to progress to the next level just yet.

Possible Changes
Unlike the previous topics Concealment isn't a power that needs to be made better, but rather one that should probably be balanced more in the opposite direction. It gives a lot of benefits, it's very cheap, and it's very hard to deal with right out the box. The solution most would go with is just bumping up the price but that doesn't really feel like it'd solve much.

The thing about Concealment is that it's one of those Instant Reward Diminishing Returns powers. The more you invest in it the less you really get out of it but just a rank or two is enough to be absolutely game changing. Or rather, only 2-4 out of the 10 options are really all that useful on average. Concealment for just normal hearing and sight is basically more than half of the total utility of the power for a quarter of it's maximum price. Also taking the exotic versions of those sense types just shores up a few minor wholes but overall doesn't add much more utility as it only really maters to the rare users of exotic senses. Even just Normal Hearing or Normal Vision on their own are each very useful and just add to each other, hearing being for scouting since a stealthy character will remain out of sight anyway and Vision is perfect for combat and quickly getting around passive observation. In comparison Smell, Taste, and other esoteric senses don't really compare and sort of get screwed by inflating the price tag.

Any changes that need to be made should focus on the Vision and Hearing aspects, honestly all the other senses can sort of just be rolled into a single category for how little they mater. The Effect can due with a few nerfs, nothing permanent, but it would be a good idea if rather than make it powerful and offer limits to curb it that they took some of it as default and just made you buy it off. Maybe remove a few of Concealment's more concerning aspects and lock them behind Extras. Probably the most important is to make it resistible in some way be default without needing exotic senses. A high DC check of 20+Ranks would make it hard to detect but still let more sleuthy and perceptive characters see through it, a lower one like DC 10+Ranks would allow more to pass but could be just to figure out something may be suspicious instead of just fully counter it.
User avatar
Batgirl III
Posts: 3626
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2016 6:17 am
Location: Portland, Oregon

Re: Power Talk: Discussing the Effectiveness of Effects

Post by Batgirl III »

I’ve never had any problems with Concealment*. It is a powerful Effect, but I feel it’s costed appropriately. However, if you wanted to adjust it, I feel that Morph would be a good place to look for a comparison.

Morph grants a +20 bonus (that can break PL caps) to Disguise checks if the person making the check has reason to be suspicious. If Concealment granted a similar +20 bonus to Stealth, I’d say that would be a fair adjustment.
“footnote”
This is not to say I haven’t had a problem with specific builds that used Concealment in addition to other powers. A GM needs to look over every character their players build and evaluate for themselves... Concealment slapped onto a build that doesn’t seem to warrant it conceptually is a “yellow flag” for me. I won’t necessarily refuse the character, but I’m going to have a talk with the player about why they feel it’s necessary.
BARON wrote:I'm talking batgirl with batgirl. I love you internet.
Post Reply