Enforcer84 Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 My orignal write up of Enforcer (way back in 3rd edition) had a bunch of defenses in an "Invulnerability" EC. Well that's not really possible now and there are many more defense types...so what would be the best way to model someone who's defenses slowly adapt to his foe? Absorbtion leaps out as the best bet, but I was wondering if anyone else had cool ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? How many points are you looking to spend? A 60 pt Cosmic VPP, Only for Force Fields (-1) will allow you to make a defense for just about anything you could dream off, in any configuration you might need. Plus you can mix in advantages or limitations as necessary when going up against specific foes. Hardened, for example, is a waste of points any time you don't need it. Going up against Firelord? +60 ED, Only VS Fire (-1/2 or -1, depending on you GM) still leaves you 20-30 points to play with in the pool to buff your PD or Sight Group Flash Defense... And you get all this for the low, low price of 105 RC Alternatly, you could go with a Force Field or Defense based MP, with all kinds of configurataions so that you can have protection against any type of attack. If you make them all Flexible slots, you can mix and match as necessary. But this will get costly fast... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted September 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Well the current Enforcer is 800 pts. I rewrote him last 2 or three years ago... he's gonna be close to 1000 next time. I thought about that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narratio Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? 800pts? Ouch. Chad, methinks it's time to hack his legs off. Suffer a radiation accident, bring in 'Son of...' Otherwise the Cosmic VPP sounds the easist way doing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Democracy Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? How many points are you looking to spend? A 60 pt Cosmic VPP, Only for Force Fields (-1) will allow you to make a defense for just about anything you could dream off, in any configuration you might need. Plus you can mix in advantages or limitations as necessary when going up against specific foes. Hardened, for example, is a waste of points any time you don't need it. Going up against Firelord? +60 ED, Only VS Fire (-1/2 or -1, depending on you GM) still leaves you 20-30 points to play with in the pool to buff your PD or Sight Group Flash Defense... And you get all this for the low, low price of 105 RC Alternatly, you could go with a Force Field or Defense based MP, with all kinds of configurataions so that you can have protection against any type of attack. If you make them all Flexible slots, you can mix and match as necessary. But this will get costly fast... You might also want to have an aid feeding a particular defence limited to defending aiding a defence he has already been hit with - so the defence adapts to past events but does not anticipate new attacks... Doc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? I favor the VPP option myself. That said, it'd probably be best to include some form of NCC on it, with rules and conditions on what type and how much defense goes up at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ockham's Spoon Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? The VPP is probably the easiest way to go, but just brainstorming here you could also buy Healing to Any One CHA, 0 END, Triggered when hit by any attack for the second or later time. Of course the character could still be stunned unless you allow Healing to unstun too (Sean Waters started a thread recently on that topic). _______________________________________________________ "Why follow me to higher ground, lost as you swear I am." - Ed Roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rapier Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Well, that depends on your theory of creation (character creation, that is). You could buy him a big MP with a bunch of multi slots -- one for PD, one for ED etc and purchase them all (and the reserve) with Trigger. The trigger will activate whatever DEF is appropriate for the attack. It might get snarky if the character is hit multiple times in a phase, since the MP would have to switch slots twice...but you ARE paying for the trigger on the reserve which gets a mite expensive. There is also the question of when it would Trigger. Triggers are 0-phase actions, but does that mean you can take a 0-phase action when it isn't your turn? You could also just purchase him a huge VPP with a number of FFs in it (as per Bloodstone's suggestion). You could either have them all on at the same time or, again, trigger them to an appropriate attack type. VPP is probably your best bet. It is as rules friendly as you can get, and required the least amount of hoops to jump through. Normally, I would look askance at any type of invulnerability build in this vein, but you ARE talking about a character between 800 and 1000pts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted September 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? And he's not immune to damage, just highly resistant to it. A brick of high level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? The only differant take I can think of is Absorbion into Stun and Bod, only vs last special effect taken...either it changes on its own (and you get schooled by smart enemies with Multi's) or you can choose when to adapt, thus leaving it "set" till you see something worse to adapt to.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weldun Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Sorry, E-man. I read through here earlier but this came to me afterwards. If you want a slowly adapting defence ability, as per the Thread seed, Bloodstone is off to a good start, but has sprint out of the gates in what is a marathon run. Yes, use a "Defence" VPP, cosmic advantages, but the limitation gets a little odd. Limited effect, may only use added points to create a defense against the attack the points were "absorbed" from (-1). The power pool itself can start as a fairly low 15 point, which you simply leave in armour. Your control pool, however, is capable of handling up to say, 80 points. You then add 1d6 Aid Power Pool (similar to Kinetron's old absorbtion to kenetic energy pool, now that I think about it), automatically reseting trigger (when successfully attacked, +1), Self Only (-½), Limited Control (-½). It wouldn't be worth -1 or -2 uncontrolled, but the character cannot activate the power himself, except by actually attacking himself. This all costs the character 85 points. The reason for the aid instead of absorbtion, is that absorbtion works against physical and energy attacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike W Posted October 1, 2006 Report Share Posted October 1, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? My orignal write up of Enforcer (way back in 3rd edition) had a bunch of defenses in an "Invulnerability" EC. Well that's not really possible now and there are many more defense types...so what would be the best way to model someone who's defenses slowly adapt to his foe? Absorbtion leaps out as the best bet, but I was wondering if anyone else had cool ideas. For something like this, I usually a variable power pool with limits "defensive powers only"(which includes buying defenses against NNDs) and "may only buy powers to counteract attacks he was hit with in this fight". For most opponents, you can buy virtual immunity by dumping about 20 points or so into the appropriate defense. So use that as a guideline for how many things you want to be able to defend against. I've tried Absoprtion but that isn't always the right special effect. It is also not very cost efficient and involves a lot of record keeping. But it also depends on quickly you want to adapt. If you want the character to adapt slowly, Absorption works better. But if you want a faster approach, similar to a Sentinel Robot in Marvel, then the VPP works better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkwleisemann Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? I've actually got a character (Demi) who's a mutant with unusual energy manipulation powers that relate to these sort of things. Basically, she can become virtually immune to one sort of energy, and project energy blasts of an 'opposing' sort. She shifts back and forth based on whatever she's been exposed to last. I set it up as Damage Reduction, with a -1/4 limitation of "only against energy type last struck by." Hit her with fire, and she can project a frost spray while being immune to fire. Proceed to hit her with an electrical blast, and she's got no additional defenses against that until the next time she gets hit with it. So she's pretty good against Firewing. But against Blowtorch and Riptide, she's in deep trouble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper-Man Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? My orignal write up of Enforcer (way back in 3rd edition) had a bunch of defenses in an "Invulnerability" EC. Well that's not really possible now and there are many more defense types...so what would be the best way to model someone who's defenses slowly adapt to his foe? Absorbtion leaps out as the best bet, but I was wondering if anyone else had cool ideas. A possibly easier approach from a record keeping aspect might be to build 2 layers of defenses. The 1st set always functions but everything in the second set only works after taking X # of effective hits from a particular sfx power/attack. You could even make it with a version of gradual effect. 3rd hit you get 1/4 (bonus) defense, 6th hit you get 1/2, etc. adjust frequency and fractions at your discretion. The tough part is figuring out how much this type of limitation would be worth at various levels. This would only require the number of hits to be tracked and would explain how characters like Superman can initially get repeatedly hammered by an attack (like Captain Marvel's magic lightning) but eventually steel themeselves vs. that particular effect for that fight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weldun Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? "By George I've Got It!" *smack forehead* 75% Damage Reduction, Resistant. 60pts base. Variable Special Effect (Any; +½). 90pts active. Uncontrolled (protects against last successful power that had a detrimental effect, greatest effect; -1), Gradual Effect (25% is shifted per phase; -¼). 40 real. Why do I always have to overcomplicate these things? Basically, this will protect you from the most recent attacks that had an effect on your character. Example. Imagine that your character got heavily assaulted by mental powers last session, putting all 75% as mental damage reduction, and that your character has a PD and ED of 20, fully resistant. In one phase, your character is hit with a fire-based energy blast that dealt 35 (15 inflicted) points of STUN and caused no KB, so you're now 50% Mental and 25% Energy. In a later phase, the next attack dealt 28 (6 inflicted) STUN, but somehow caused a lot of KB, (I don't know. Shaped-charge Fireballs, maybe?), slamming you into an armored car while dealing 42 (22 inflicted) STUN, you now have 25% Mental, 25% Energy and 25% Physical because while the next attack was still a fire effect, the greater amount of the damage inflicted was physical. As a GM, I would prefer to see this, because it means that while your character can become nearly unstoppable against a single-effect, solo opponent, multiple effects can still dilute it's effects. And imagine the look on a mentalist's face when, after having searched your mind for your phych lims, has difficulty trying to mind control you. And then finds that his ego blasts are barely affecting you at all. Hell, you could create a real monster if you combine that with my VPP version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weldun Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Have I effectively killed this thread? *bump* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper-Man Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Have I effectively killed this thread? *bump*nah.. some people are just taking short breaks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloodstone Posted October 4, 2006 Report Share Posted October 4, 2006 Re: Adaptive Defense? Personally, I can't really add anything until I get a better description of the Enforcers abilites. Like how quickly and often his powers adapt, what his base defenses are like and what DC attacks he's expected to be able to shrug off effortlessly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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