Versatile Abilities

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 5:31 pm

Ok, so it's no secret that the real power behind the mystic is the ability to apply the same ability to various situations. So of course 'mundanes' simply can't do much because you usually can't get that much versatility in having less than magical abilities. Now Frank mentioned that more physical characters should just have abilities like "Super Strength" or "Super Speed". So my question is, what kind of stuff should having super strength, super speed, and the like give you or allow a character to do?

There's hitting harder, lifting heavy things, dodging better and walking faster but what else?

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 5:36 pm

Super Speed classically gives a bunch of infiltration related abilities if you do it fast enough, and also intellectual abilities. Read things super-fast, run so fast you vibrate through walls, run over water (not having to Swim, which might be a Str-based check), run up walls, etc.

Super Strength is a wee bit harder. Selling Flex Mentallo and his Muscle Mystery is tricky, but right away we can see that you can punch people in the face, punch the ground so hard it shakes (area attacks!), break through doors (obviating the need for lockpicks), and bounce attacks off your sheer muscle. So we're not doing too bad.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:06 pm

Don't forget "carry a literal boatload of magic items". It's a great semi-mundane ability.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:11 pm

MGuy wrote:Ok, so it's no secret that the real power behind the mystic is the ability to apply the same ability to various situations. So of course 'mundanes' simply can't do much because you usually can't get that much versatility in having less than magical abilities. Now Frank mentioned that more physical characters should just have abilities like "Super Strength" or "Super Speed". So my question is, what kind of stuff should having super strength, super speed, and the like give you or allow a character to do?

There's hitting harder, lifting heavy things, dodging better and walking faster but what else?

With enough "super speed" you basically catch everybody flat-footed and all your attacks are essentially coup-de-graces.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:17 pm

I'd pull from the Hulk and treat crazy muscle power as being able to approximate a number of things classically associated with speedsters, but without the fine degree of control or same top speed. For example, high speed super leaps could work fine as a strongman travel power or imprecise attack as long as you don't mind leaving a crater where you touch down, whereas Sir Speed can just straight up have a ridiculous movement range from turn to turn even if he's multi-tasking.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:54 pm

The Flash classically used his super-speed as form of wind control, whirling his arms to create gusts and vacuums, as well as running in tight circles to generate mini-tornadoes. I don't think he's done much with controlled sonic booms, but that's an ability set that's easy to envision.

Super-strong people, on the other hand, totally do use a lot of sonic explosion effects. The Hulk and the Thing have both used concussive handclaps as area attacks. Super-strength also traditionally comes with some form of super-breath, limited lung capacities be damned.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 8:10 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:limited lung capacities be damned.

In one end and right out the other? Or would this be out one end and in through the other? Regardless, never stand behind the Hulk.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 8:32 pm

Lots of super-strong guys have powers that are powerful enough to damage things on a metaphysical level just because they're so strong. Punching so hard magic fails is something that not all super-strongmen can do, and not all spells fall for it, but for the ones who can, it fucking breaks. It's a moment of sheer heroism trumping reality. If you're an angsty demigod you might punch so hard you in fact crack the walls between realities, though that's not very consistent, and if you're Inuyasha you can cut so hard that you open portals to another dimension.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 8:53 pm

super strength also means you won't have to get close to stuff you don't want to. jump out of the way and throw things at your target super hard. and you won't need to touch anything you don't want to touch either. as long as you are not concerned with collateral damage, there is, for a super strong being, nothing that is not a viable throwing weapon of club . . that car? throw it! that metal lamp-post? rip it out and use it to hit things with! that house? push it over on somebody who displeases you with their existence!
super streangth also can help with infiltration by simply jumping up onto a building and entering through the roof. and it technically allows you to climb anything and everything that's stable enough! why? simply MAKE hand-holds for yourself by pushing fingers and maybe toes into walls and hulls and the such.
at a certain point, there is literally no problem you can't solve by use of strength. if throwing it upwards hard enough to achieve escape velocity is a viable solution to the problem at least.
what levels of strength are we talking about here?
green hulk / thor?
colossus / iron-man?
furthermore, you can, as mentioned above, be the pack-mule.
use your strength passively/defensively, even if you, yourself, are not invulnerable or even super tough . . simply by taking something like an abrams tank along and putting it between your side and the enemy . .
take this a step further: you can wear armor like clothing that would put an abrams tank to shame to give you super toughness approximateing invulnerability through external means. imagine if the hulk, colossus or the thing wore armor, maybe riddled with weapons, in addition to their own strength-level . .

super-speed, taken to the logical end is basically an i-win-button against most anything. especially in games. if you have a 1% chance of success of anything, then you need, technically, 100 attempts to succeed. if you can do 100 such attempts in 1 second, there is little you can't do in one second flat. need as password? if the system ain't locked against bruteforce simply try every single combination one after the other in seconds. this only gets worse if you allow the brain to achieve these speeds as well. if you can outthink anybody, you can't lose against them usually.

best example?
Adrian Veits - Ozymandias from Watchmen.
He had won 20 Minutes before the Heroes were at his Doorstep.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 9:34 pm

How do you challenge anything with super strength / super speed without having to rely on super strength / super speed or invalidating it?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 9:38 pm

ishy wrote:How do you challenge anything with super strength / super speed without having to rely on super strength / super speed or invalidating it?

easy.
levitate the big strong man or the fast man about 1cm away from any surface. how do you use that strength or speed if you have nothing in reach to use?
or did you mean that by invalidating it?
you have to either cancel it by fighting fire with fire or you have to cancel it by fighting fire with water. you could try and apply to their conscience by having hostages.
strong guy has to hold up the building or everybody inside dies. speedster has to get the people out before the building falls and everybody dies.

for the speedster, the old pig-trick might work as well . .
bombs, neatly numbered, one, two, four. now let him wonder and search for number three.

otherwise: all time favourite:
invisibility! can't hit what you can't find.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 5:24 pm

Ok so decent stuff. I have thought about some of these things and I think going wind and sonic effects with speed while going with quick destructive and area damaging super strength shenanigans is the way to go.

So now I have to figure out what levels I want would be strength bruisers (IE Barbarians and possibly morhping Druids) to be able to simply tear the scenery up at a whim. I suppose that at the level they can one v one giants would be most appropriate (so around level 7 or 8 I think at the earliest). I think effective use of Break DCs would allow me to create a minimum bar to entry for super strength shenanigans since there are not a lot of ways to enhance your strength score in my game. Jumping good (along with other forms of strength based movement) are covered by the Jump (and other relevant) skills.

I think I'll have speedsters stick to moving faster, wind, and sonic effects. Moving faster and having higher dodge are pretty much covered by the classes and races that enhance move speed and dexterity. I can just add more wind/sonic abilities to classes that enhance dexterity and the like. Ugh I don't know right now so I'll decide later.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:24 pm

Super Strength Schticks from various comics and movies

Attacks:

Area, line, adds knockdown - by ripping up the ground under foes
Area, radius - by slamming the ground to create shockwaves
Area, radius, deafening and knockback - by handclap so forceful it creats shockwaves and sonic boom
Area, variable - by picking up a handy oversized object (lamppost, tree, omnibus) and using it as an improvised weapon
Area, cone, adds cold damage/knockback and/or ice entangle - via breath so strong it creates arctic chills
Ranged attack, via picking up a handy oversized object (mailbox, tire, boulder) and throwing as a missile
Entangle, via holding on with super strength
Entangle, via using pieces of the environment (pipes, lamppost, sheets of asphalt to tie up foes.
Quick and silent dispatch of mooks or sufficiently impaired named foes via super strength sleeper holds or super-strength finger flick to forehead.

Movement:

Superleaping, due to mighty leg muscles
Tunneling, due to ability to punch through normally solid surfaces
Faster than normal human, but short of dedicated speedster running, due to superhuman athleticism
Ability to command unruly mount animals through either physical superiority to such animals or vague "shared savagery" link.
Ability to travel via punching holes in things that only exist as concepts.

Defenses

Able to counter grabs and stomps from much larger foes via strength
Able to break out of most grabs, entangles and restraints
Various forms of Nigh-invulnerability
Regeneration
Ability to recharge when trigger condition (Gamma Rays, Rage, Spinach, consuming thematic element, etc) is met.
Just keeps getting on back up no matter how many times pounded into the ground

Other:

Area denial due to environmental manipulation. (Collapsing buildings, digging instant craters, etc)
Area control due to terrain manipulation (instant walls, Heracles diverting rivers, etc)
Trading actions to delay doomsday device activation (holding the blast doors, falling on the N-grenade the Hulk holding the plantary core together, etc)
Limited Shapeshift via muscular control and contortionism
Intimidating presence due to size, feats of strength or just muscular build
Ability to aid gadgeteers via substituing for various pieces of heavy machinery. (most commonly Ben Grimm working as a jack or forklift)

The only really notable lack is that Super Strength is not associated with any particular sensory abilities. That's not to say that super-strength cahracters don't have various forms of super-perception, because they totally do. However those sensory abilities tend to be linked more to the individual character's theme or power source than to that character's possession of super strength. Superman gets super-forms of regular abilities for being Super; Thor gets abilities to perceive weather and Asgardian effects, the Hulk gets to perceive Gamma effects (or revert to Banner and have all sorts of Sciencey perception), Wonder Woman has the Lasso of Truth because her creator was a psychiatrist and helped develop the polygraph, -- in each case the sensory abilities have nothing to do with the character having super strength.

K · Post by K » Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:53 pm

The core problem is that DC Comics powers can do anything and "do anything" is not something that can be modeled in a game. It's MTP.

For example, The Flash uses speed to vibrate though objects and time travel. Superman's strength translates to sonic attacks when he yells and his heat vision can used to do delicate brain surgery capable of removing someone's powers and not hurting them otherwise. Dr. Fate can literally do anything because his power is magic, Full Stop, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.

More "realistic" comics like Marvel can be modeled by games because heroes like Wolverine have non-versatile powers like just hitting things with claws. Maybe he's got a few kinds of claw attacks, but no one expects him to claw time or slice sound or anything.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 8:57 pm

Wolverine uses his Claws for climbing for example, which immensely helps with Infiltration.
Same goes for a simple little snikt to cut open a chain link fence or lock or something like that.
Or to cut open hand-cuffs or other stuff binding him.
Which is something that can be done with super-strength as well.
Escape-Artists. Like Superman did in the new Man of Steel Movie.
Let them cuff you, and when it doesn't suit your needs any more, plink, done.

And just to be an ass:
It depends completely on who is writing him, what he can cut with them.
Especially when he had the Phoenix-Force in him that one time.

K · Post by K » Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:11 pm

"Hitting things with claws" and "breaking objects with hits with claws" are different ways of saying the exact same thing. In RPG game terms, it's the same mechanic.

I also don't think "that time Wolverine was invested with godlike power" to be relevant to any discussion of his powers.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:15 pm

Still, how is hitting things with claws not a versatile ability?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:46 pm

Well, for one thing, "Hit things with claws" is actually more akin to a high bonus in the "Violence the problem" skill--an option practically everyone can use to one degree or another--than it is a full-featured power set. In many comics Wolverine's other core powers like heightened senses and several lifetimes worth of combat & survival experience are much more important to the way he approaches various problems than his claws are.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 9:49 pm

Wolverine's greatest strength, like Batman is his popularity ... allowing him to get away with more plot contrivances than other characters.

The telepaths in Marvel are all pretty hax BTW.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:00 pm

Yeah, aside from Prof. X and Magneto mutants generally weren't all that freaky powerful until Chris Claremont and his jones for psychics came on board. Now even a lot of the D list mutant telepaths would completely wreck your shit if victory wasn't typically parceled out by popularity.

K · Post by K » Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:02 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Still, how is hitting things with claws not a versatile ability?

Hitting things with claws replicates owning simple tools. Literally, the ability to cut open a chain-link fence replicates owning a $10 pair of wire clippers.

It's an ability that's firmly limited in it's applications by real-world physics for the most part.

Compared to super speed that's allowed any application as long as the words "velocity" or "speed" or "motion" or "energy" might appear in a high-school science book talking about it, and they don't compare at all. DC Comics super speed is merely a theme for vast magical powers with nearly unlimited applications.

I mean, I don't know if the Flash ever cured cancer, but if you said "and then the Flash vibrated to the cellular frequency of cancer and then removed each cancerous cell one by one by vibrating through that guy's body," I'd be forced to believe you because it's no more improbable than anything else that The Flash has ever done.

The latest DC animated movie is literally a time-travel story about how The Flash and the Anti-Flash use speed for time travel. WTF?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:24 pm

OK, i see what you mean now.
And using speed for time-travel is old news.
Superman did so years ago already.
And the flash has used speed for time-tavel several times as well already.
Technically speaking, speed is the answer to time-travel in science, if i understood that correctly.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Sat Aug 10, 2013 11:18 pm

K wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Still, how is hitting things with claws not a versatile ability?
Hitting things with claws replicates owning simple tools. Literally, the ability to cut open a chain-link fence replicates owning a $10 pair of wire clippers.

It's an ability that's firmly limited in it's applications by real-world physics for the most part.

Compared to super speed that's allowed any application as long as the words "velocity" or "speed" or "motion" or "energy" might appear in a high-school science book talking about it, and they don't compare at all. DC Comics super speed is merely a theme for vast magical powers with nearly unlimited applications.

I mean, I don't know if the Flash ever cured cancer, but if you said "and then the Flash vibrated to the cellular frequency of cancer and then removed each cancerous cell one by one by vibrating through that guy's body," I'd be forced to believe you because it's no more improbable than anything else that The Flash has ever done.

The latest DC animated movie is literally a time-travel story about how The Flash and the Anti-Flash use speed for time travel. WTF?

OK, i see what you mean now.
And using speed for time-travel is old news.
Superman did so years ago already.
And the flash has used speed for time-tavel several times as well already.
Technically speaking, speed is the answer to time-travel in science, if i understood that correctly.

Yeah, but limited to traveling forwards in time. None of that (passing the chronal barrier creating a "time-boom" [or whatever the anti-flash called it]). (Awesome movie by the way).

Still, how would one replicate those powers in DnD? Would we have to turn to making M&M-like abilities?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:00 am

Wasn't superman travelling back in time by flying around the world real fast in the old superman the movie?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Aug 11, 2013 6:30 pm

Yeah, he was . .

The Gaming Den

Versatile Abilities

Versatile Abilities

Re: Versatile Abilities