Basic Action Super Heroes!

When a power has a limitation listed next to the cost, is it required or a recommendation? If it's required, is it already figured into the cost?

Example:

Super Speed
3-5 pts, Tiring

Thanks!

Yes, it is figured into the cost - it's a balancing issue w/ the power. So if you want, you can take an additional Limitation on Tiring to reduce it's cost by one, or you can "buy off" the Tiring limitation for 1pt.

Would it just be 1 point to buy off an inherent disadvantage, or should it cost extra since it is there for balance reasons?

I'm still not 100% sure on that. I'd probably have it be 2pts, just because being able to put up a Force Field w/o concentration is very powerful, especially when people are using held actions...

I had another question about this topic: Let's say you buy off the inherent Concentration limitation on a non-combat power like Scan. Does the power become a free action to activate, like most other powers, or does it still take your action to perform it (just without delaying it to the end of the page)?

And if it becomes a free action, what does that mean for Force Field? I assume a Force Field that you are placing around an enemy to trap him still counts as an attack and takes your attack action (it requires an attack roll, etc. so that seems pretty clear). What about defensive uses of Force Field, would that be a free action or full action?

I'd make it count as a full action at least!

Jumping in on this discussion late in the game, simply because I'm dealing with this issue right now.

Chris, why do you feel that using Foce Field w/o Concentration is so powerful that it would require 2 points to negate the Limitation?

Even without the limitation, using a FF would still require a full action, so a character would forego any other action to activate it, whether defensively (throwing it up to block an attack, a very common trope in the comics) or offensively (trapping an opponent, which is handled with an opposed roll like any other attack).

Just trying to understand the logic...

Okay. I'm a telekinetic mind-controller surrounded by a force field. The Force Field has 200 Hits, and I spent a page attempting to Mind Control one of your party members safely behind it. You guys managed to punch 90 points off of the force field that page. Next page, I TK two of your team mates out the window from behind the safety of my force field. Your team manages to punch 90 points off of it. 20 Points left...

This page. I hold my panel. As soon as the Force Field is knocked down to 0 Hits, I immediately regenerate it, putting up another 200 Hit shield in front of me, giving nobody on your team the opportunity to hit me while the force field is down. Repeat this ad infinitum until your entire party gives up or is defeated.

This was a problem I discovered during playtesting.

The point of it taking concentration is so that there WILL BE at least a short gap in time from the FF being dropped to 0 and the user getting to regenerate it- during this gap, they are vulnerable.

That sounds to me more of an issue with being able to create a Force Field with such a high value for Hits than necessarily an issue with Concentration.

Since activating the Force Field is still a full action, the psyker in the example would still have to wait until his panel to recreate the FF, right? Giving other characters a chance to get a strike in.

I mean, I've already encountered a situation where the team was totally unable to touch an opponent (it was walking around with a Soak of x8!), so FF is certainly not alone in causing that sort of situation.

This seems more of an issue with limits on power levels than the rules mechanics in themselves.

Just my $.02.

If it takes your full panel why would that stop you from doing it as an interupt when you hold your action? This isn't D&D- where you have move actions and standard actions and full actions. If you hold your panel, you get to take an entire panel when you use it. If you specify what you're holding for, you get to interupt- so if you say "I'm holding my panel to regen my forcefield the instant it goes down" you'd get to do it. By having it be concentration, you can't do that.

This also is a trope of comics- that the force-field user "can't hold it much longer...". Making the Force Fields weaker would also go against genre tropes- as we wouldn't be able to have a force field that survives a missile impact, etc- if they were limited to a low amoount of Hits. The "psycher" in the previous example had a Mind 5 Force Field 5- but even a character with a Force Field of 100 Hits can be really obnoxious to fight- if the FF regenerates to 100 Hits every page.

As for a x8 Soak- there's more than 1 way to skin a cat- see the "Victory without Violence" bit in the Narrator's section (or is that in the rules section?). Someone who's a big bruiser w/ x8 soak may be vulnerable to mental attacks, being blinded, being captured in some way through creative use of the scenery. Failing this, there is also the possiblitity to try to get "into his head" and use some sort of extended check to talk him out of fighting (this sounds silly, but it happens all the time in comics).

Even if you go the tried and true- beat him till he's down to 0 Hits method, against a x8 soak- when he loses Hits on that time he rolls a 3, they're gone. A force field can just be re-generated.

But if you hold your action, you can't do anything else, right? If the psyker is saying, "I'm holding my action to regen the force field" then he's basically taken himself off the fight, since he can't do anything else and lose the held action.

The problem I see is that with the Concentration limitation, the ability for the Force Field to be a usable defensive power is reduced. Throwing up the field to defend against a missile impact is pretty much futile if the missile hits before the end of the page, as I discovered right off the first time I tried to use the power.

You mention the concept of Force Field as a trope. For me, the archetypical representations of the Force Field power are Sue Storm and Violet Parr, and neither had that sort of delay inherent in their powers. If anything, it was a heck of a lot more common for them to bubble up the instant the bullets started flying.

Perhaps the problem is in allowing the ability to "regenerate" the Field. Couldn't the concept of having the character grit his teeth and stammer, "I can't... hold it... much longer?" be better represented by the Field losing its Hits without being able to rebuild it?

Maybe define the power so that the character has to wait until the next page after the field goes down to be able to activate the power again, thus providing that window of opportunity you're looking for.

We had a similar situation with Intangibility with another game system I played in. Players would try to go solid, attack, then turn back to desolid. The fix was to not allow the character to do both in the same turn.

If you want to be able to put up a force field as an interupt, you still can- it would just cost 1-2 points to buy off the Concentration Limitation.

Or a Hero Dice...