Semi-Overlapping Disadvantages

[Isawa Brian]

Hi! Long time, no see. I'm being slowly brought back into the game by an enthusiast friend who's kept up better than I have, but there are still some questions from time to time.

At the moment, I'm creating a... for lack of a better word, angelic fluffball, suitable as a part-power source, part-light source, and part YOUR TOTAL BEST BUD. I want to create a couple of lenses, based on the type of deity the fluffball-- Guiding Light is my working name-- belongs to, but there's the potential for overlap in those lenses. This is based in a fairly generic Dungeon Fantasy setting that he's expecting us to fill out as we develop our characters, and, as you may have guessed, it is not the most serious take on the subject, even given the original. I have a rough idea of what the various god-types are like, though I'd have to IM to get more specifics since he's the one with the Dungeon Fantasy PDFs, but I have hardcopies for 4e Basic Set, Magic, Thaumatology, Powers, Supers, Biotech, and probably some other stuff lying around somewhere. Vorkosigan, I think? Somewhere, at least.

So, anyway, among the disadvantages, each Guiding Light has:

Code of Honor (Professional Angelic Buddy, I mean Guiding Light) [-5]
I'm treating this as a Professional Code; it's not, necessarily, an obligation to follow the religious code of their deity (they have Fanaticism for that), it is instead:
*Honestly and earnestly serve as a confidant, guide, assistant, and friend to your principle. Guide, here, means both "be a good little lantern in the dungeon" and "help your principle understand and execute your god's moral and ethical code."
*Be patient but persistent with your principle's foilibles; they are but merely mortal. You can, however, totally get them on the right steps if you just keep trying!
*Provide assistance to the faith and servants of your deity in general, with the bare minimum being 'politely pester your principle to lend a hand.'
The code is especially important because it's a part of their Pact modifier (violation of which may lead to tragic Fluffball Incidents).

Sense of Duty (“Good” entities) [-15]
I've opted to assume that, barring contrary instruction from the GM, "Good" covers sufficient people to mean an entire race; while few races will actually all be good guys, they will be spread over a sufficiently large number of races to count. I'm debating making this a Sense of Duty to the cause of Good as a concept, possibly making it a [-20], but that seems really iffy to me.

Trust me when I say that every fluffball will be assigned by a good deity, or at least, that the nature of the little guys would have to be really, really seriously changed for another type.

Each Lens should reflect something of the nature of their deity, which brings me to the actual question:

It has been established that Honor In War, the Goddess of War, Justice, and Protection (or at least, the one in the Light Pantheon) requires a Code of Honor: Chivalry or Code of Honor: Soldier's in her followers. Potentially, in a sufficiently silly take, the Fluffball might have a Chivalrous code, including pseudojousting with (internal) flashlight lightsabers and/or their Innate Attacks, but I suspect that for the moment at least, Sir Fluffball will have to be Lieutenant and/or Specialist AWESOME CLASS Fluffball with an officer's, or at least sergeant's Code of Honor: Soldier's [-10]. Similarly, followers of the Hollyhock Boytoy (long story), God of Fertility, Healing, and Passion, are supposed to take either Code of Honor (Hippocratic Oath-equivalent) [-5], Sense of Duty (Nature) [-15], or both.

These traits are either skew to the Fluffballs' base traits in the same category or overlapping in some senses. We're not wholly sure how to handle it. Are they sufficiently distinct that they're both permissible on the same character? Or should Alternate Ability rules from Powers be used-- so for the Hollyhock Fluffball, it'd be CoH: Fluffball [-5], CoH: Healer (Alternate), [-1], SoD: "Good" Entities [-15], SoD: Nature [-3]? Or should it be "Highest with another -5 added on top", like... SoD: Nature and Good Entities [-20], which isn't EVERY living being, but there are many non-alive/spiritual entities that are good in this setting.

Thanks for your time, and it feels good to be back.

[Blind Mapmaker]

First off, are we talking about a type of NPC ally here? In that case I wouldn't sweat it too much. I'm treating it as a PC in this case, though.

Normally, I'm not too keen on overlapping disadvantages, but yours don't seem so bad. CoH: Professional and Chivalry can certainly work together IF you don't just reason away conflicts between each other. The little fluffball would have to decide when to joust and when to counsel and might make a mess of it. Likewise SoD: Nature (meaning all non-evil animals and plants) and "Good" entities (including humanoids) is not a problem for me. Unless the fluffball has a Detect: Evil ability there should always be a benefit of the doubt when it comes to who counts as "good".

Having said that, I must say that extending the alternate abilities rules to include overlapping disadvantages is quite intriguing. The problem is that only one alternate ability can be used at the same time. Either the GM decides which one or this is an actual advantage for the character (being able to choose a CoH). Of course, you could just reduce the points the disadvantages give instead of increase them.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Shouldn't SoD: Nature be all natural organisms? Plenty of unnatural and invasive species aren't evil, but still plenty harmful.


When 2 advantages or disadvantages overlap, I prefer to drop the cost for the overlapping traits from one of the two. The difficulty is figuring out how many points that should be.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Isawa Brian

Trust me when I say that every fluffball will be assigned by a good deity, or at least, that the nature of the little guys would have to be really, really seriously changed for another type.

Countdown to player proposing concept for anti-paladin with fluffball corrupted to the Dark Side in 5... 4... 3...

The first example, COH (Guiding Light), seems pretty much subsumed in SoD (Good). Most of the later examples seem much more orthogonal.

Like Vaevictis, I would deduct points for the degree of overlap; or, equivalently, redefine the CoHs so that their bullet points didn't overlap with the SoD, and rate them at a lower cost.

[Isawa Brian]

Sorry about the response time; it's been a crazy couple of days getting my students ready for their EOC.

While I'm here, to make an Innate Attack that attacks spirits and the physical alike, plus ignores all DR, that requires both Cosmic, +300% and Affects Insubstantial, +20%, right? Insubstantiability doesn't count as a passive defense?

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

First off, are we talking about a type of NPC ally here? In that case I wouldn't sweat it too much. I'm treating it as a PC in this case, though.

Normally, I'm not too keen on overlapping disadvantages, but yours don't seem so bad. CoH: Professional and Chivalry can certainly work together IF you don't just reason away conflicts between each other. The little fluffball would have to decide when to joust and when to counsel and might make a mess of it. Likewise SoD: Nature (meaning all non-evil animals and plants) and "Good" entities (including humanoids) is not a problem for me. Unless the fluffball has a Detect: Evil ability there should always be a benefit of the doubt when it comes to who counts as "good".

Well, they are NPC allies, but I'm not the GM, and I'm already going to be doing some strange things in the Innate Attacks and the Create Light, so I want to be clear here. I was specifically requested by the cleric and holy warrior players to put Detect Evil in on it, though. I'm just the wizard! But noooo, I volunteered...

Having said that, I must say that extending the alternate abilities rules to include overlapping disadvantages is quite intriguing. The problem is that only one alternate ability can be used at the same time. Either the GM decides which one or this is an actual advantage for the character (being able to choose a CoH). Of course, you could just reduce the points the disadvantages give instead of increase them.

Would it work by saying it's about when they count? In other words, in this situation, it's covered by x CoH, in this one y, and when they overlap, doesn't matter?

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Shouldn't SoD: Nature be all natural organisms? Plenty of unnatural and invasive species aren't evil, but still plenty harmful.


When 2 advantages or disadvantages overlap, I prefer to drop the cost for the overlapping traits from one of the two. The difficulty is figuring out how many points that should be.

I suppose. Blind Mapmaker made some decent points about them not being too overlappy. I'm considering just passing the buck along and saying, "For this lens, take -15 points worth of disadvantages from this list...""

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Countdown to player proposing concept for anti-paladin with fluffball corrupted to the Dark Side in 5... 4... 3...

The first example, COH (Guiding Light), seems pretty much subsumed in SoD (Good). Most of the later examples seem much more orthogonal.

Like Vaevictis, I would deduct points for the degree of overlap; or, equivalently, redefine the CoHs so that their bullet points didn't overlap with the SoD, and rate them at a lower cost.

I'm not really sure that the Code overlaps with the Sense in any point-significant fashion. Both of them operate semi-independently; the Sense tells the Guiding Light to care about and aid in a general sense; the Code prescribes and requires certain forms of action to be taken (as a result of the Sense, but, it's still a different type of behavior restriction).