Deflect Again + Ghost Form

[drkrash]

Boy, I'm hung up on this power.

It says that you can deflect a physical attack. So does that just mean no mental attacks? Or does that mean no energy attacks also?

By default, I can deflect a punch or a thrown weapon, but not a fire blast or laser beam? Is that right?

And if so, can you buy an Enhancement so it does affect energy attacks?

Likewise, can you buy an enhancement that allows the 3 point version of Ghost Form to also avoid energy attacks?

[BASHMAN]

By "physical attack" it meant "hand to hand attack". You can deflct lasers, bullets, etc of course. The difference is you cannot reflect hand to hand attacks.

However, you CANNOT deflect mental attacks of any sort. Defense against those is made by a Mind roll. Likewise deflect won't work on an explosion.

As for Ghost Form, no you cannot make it apply to Energy attacks as well- but what you can do is buy Immunity to various forms of energy. Note that as a Narrator, I would never allow a character to be 100% immune to ever being hit. But some might.

[drkrash]

Thanks. That's exactly the way I've been playing it, but I was reading the exact description in the book today and that phrase "physical attack" jumped out at me.

These are, again, questions related to the builds for the Everwatch book.

Any thoughts on duplicating the power of Desolidification from Hero? Obviously Ghost Form 3, but in Hero, that protected you from all non-mental attacks.

It's not absolutely necessary for the character I'm working on, but I'm just curious if you had given it any thought, since I know you are familiar with Champions.

[BASHMAN]

I'm not all that familiar with it. When I played it in college, it was with a lot of hand-holding by my Physics PHD friends who were into the system and understood it well. They'd usually tell me what to buy, etc and that's what I'd take.

[Nestor]

IIRC (and this may actually have been a house-rule) in Hero, for Desolid you had to establish a non-mental attack that you were still vulnerable too.

So, for example, if the character's Desolid's SFX was turning into smoke, he'd still be vulnerable to wind attacks.

[Dragonfly]

Hey there!

I had the same concern as well back when I started playing BASH. Essentially, I wanted to be able to model a character like Kitty Pryde, who could become intangible to ignore the effects of energy and physical attacks. Also, it doesn't quite make sense to me that a ghost would be taking damage from lasers or other "mudane" energy attacks.

BASHMAN actually offered the following solution: Buy Ghost Form (vs. Physical Attacks) and link it to a second purchase of Ghost Form (vs. Energy Attacks). The total cost would be 5 pts.

Of course, creating that energy resistant version of Ghost Form would be considered a house rule, as there is no way to do it RAW.

I'm less concerned than others about such a build being unbalancing. Such characters are still affected by Mental Attacks, and they should also be vulnerable to attacks that make sense given their power descriptor. Characters with Desolidification never seemed overpowered in HERO, so I can handle them in BASH. That being said, I'd discuss it with my player to make certain that the particular build wasn’t broken.
In general, I haven’t needed to use that power construction, but I still think it’s wise to have the option – lest BASH UE be seen as less complete than most other supers games.

Best,

Dragonfly

[BASHMAN]

I think Kitty Pryde is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes she can go through forcefields--- and sometimes she can't. Depends who's writing that day.

I suppose another easy way to do this is instead of buying "Immunity" to an energy type, have the Ghost Form have "Extra Effect: Also works vs. Force" or "Extra Effect: Also works vs. Lasers" etc.

[Nestor]

There's also the fact that if things can't touch you, you can't touch things, i.e. make attacks.

[Dragonfly]

I think Kitty Pryde is somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes she can go through forcefields--- and sometimes she can't. Depends who's writing that day.

I suppose another easy way to do this is instead of buying "Immunity" to an energy type, have the Ghost Form have "Extra Effect: Also works vs. Force" or "Extra Effect: Also works vs. Lasers" etc.

It's true about Kitty (and most comic book characters for that matter). They are pretty inconsistent. While I have seen her be unable to pass through certain force fields (etc.), I don't believe that I've ever seen her damaged by lasers or energy attacks.

Using the Extra Effect model (which is more elegant), how many levels would you have to purchase to be effectively immune to most energy attacks? Would electricity, heat, and radiation about cover it? What do you think?

Best,

Dragonfly

[dugfromthearth]

Kitty can go through force fields, unless the force fields have the enhancement Affects X: ghost form

[Lindharin]

It's true about Kitty (and most comic book characters for that matter). They are pretty inconsistent. While I have seen her be unable to pass through certain force fields (etc.), I don't believe that I've ever seen her damaged by lasers or energy attacks.

At least back in the 80s, even the damage portion was inconsistent. For example, she was vulnerable to electrical attacks some of the time (Magneto hurt her with electricity during their first encounter in Uncanny X-Men 150; it's what convinced him to give up his plot), but we've also seen Storm's lightning go through her without any damage. She's occasionally been hurt by some high-tech blaster weapons (I think some Brood weapons did it, but can't remember a specific issue) but that's not true most of the time, etc. Overall, my recollection is that she seems to be immune most of the time to energy attacks, but not always.

To stick with RAW, you could do something like:

Ghost Form 3 Linked to Armor 3 (5 pts)
Boost Brawn 3 for soak only (limitation: only while phasing) (2 pts)

So for 7 pts she'd be immune to physical, and have a soak of x7 (assuming a base Brawn of 1) against energy. When her soak roll beats the energy damage, you just describe it as going through her instead of bouncing off or whatever. It's not a perfect solution, but it is rules legal and sort of represents that occasional inconsistency in the comic books.

But personally in my own game, I'm okay with having house rules to fit a specific concept, and I kind of like Ghost Form 3 (physical) linked to a house-ruled Ghost Form 3 (energy) for 5 pts, maybe with the understanding that the GM can fiat some energy attacks affecting the character in exchange for a hero point or something.

Personally, I don't like the Extra Effect vs energy types solution just because there are so many different energy types (assuming you go by the list for Resistances or Immunity). You'd arguably need electricity, heat, cold, light, radiation, sonic (and probably a generic force blast, unless you want to let that count as "physical"). It gets a little unwieldy, and the resulting point cost seems "off" to me.

On the other hand, Extra Effect is very open ended and there's nothing that says you have to make it 1 pt per energy type. You could say Extra Effort 1 would be one energy type, but Extra Effect 2 could include 3 energy types and Extra Effect 3 is all energy types except 1 (you have to designate a weakness). So for a total of 6 points you would have Ghost Form 3, Extra Effect 3 - all energy except X.

[Dragonfly]

Howdy Lindharin,

I agree with you about the Immunity solution. It's too unweildy for my tastes as well. The Armor solution, while RAW, doesn't feel right. My preferred solution was the linked Ghost Forms, but that was before I read your last suggestion. I'm ALWAYS impressed by your use of Extra Effect! You are like the Alexander Hamilton on BASH UE, and Extra Effect is your Elastic Clause! I like it!

Anyway, that's the option I'll probably use in my games.

Best,

Dragonfly

[Lindharin]

Glad you liked it, Dragonfly!

Extra Effect is your Elastic Clause!

Cool! That means I can start my own federal bank! Now, how many points of Extra Effect would that require...

[xrayzed]

There's also the fact that if things can't touch you, you can't touch things, i.e. make attacks.

You could still use mental powers: mind spikes, TK, confusion, mind control, and the rest. Potentially very nasty, and some teams could well struggle to stop them.