Enhancements on Weakness

[aesir23]

I'm trying to come up with house rules to enhance the Weakness disadvantage with things like Side Effect or other Afflictions.

In my DC Comics thread (see my Sig), I'm pretty dissatisfied with what I was able to do with Weakness.

Thinking particularly about Kryptonite--it does more than just caused damage at regular intervals to Kryptonians. It also drained their strength and nearly incapacitates them. If all Kryptonite did was 1D per minute, it wouldn't much matter to Superman. He could just beat up the bad guys and fly out of there in a matter of seconds.

So what I want is a version of Weakness that also A: Causes damage to attributes and B: Causes Incapacitation (Agony) (or possibly just Irritant: Terrible Pain).

But what would be a fair price? Should I build them as new disadvantages or as an enhancement on Weakness?

[Anaraxes]

Just add whatever Disads you'd like to have, and give them Environmental: Nearby Kryptonite. They'll all activate together, and stop when the Kryptonite goes away. No need to tie them all to one base Disad, nor Link. If you like, wrap the collection up into a "Kryptonite" meta-trait just for ease of notation and documentation.

[Varyon]

Consider a Limitation on the abilities the weakness negates to have it do just that. If you want it to cause physical pain, give the character something like an "always on" Chronic Pain, and negate it with an Advantage with the same Limitation.

Not working in the presence of some Rare substance (like Kryptonite) is probably a -5% Limitation. Put that on any ST above 10 (possibly even on some of the ST below 10), Flight, DR, IT:DR, etc. Then give the character Chronic Pain, Severe (Always On x4; 2 hour* intervals x1) [-40] and No Chronic Pain (Bane: Kryptonite -5%) [38].

*With Always On, the Interval doesn't make a lot of sense, and with it being tied to exposure to Kryptonite, it basically just lasts as long as the Kryptonite is around. That in mind, I just set it to 2 hour intervals simply because that's the x1 level.

[lwcamp]

This is similar to something I've been trying to figure out for a while. In a Sci-Fi setting I've been working on, one of the alien sapient species has a fiber-optic based nervous system. If they are hit by a laser, the bright light temporarily overloads them and they get stunned. This seems like an affliction, but I can't find any rules for applying an affliction as a disadvantage when exposed to a certain environmental condition.

I don't have a solution for you, sorry, but you might want to know that others have also run into similar issues.

Luke

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

This is similar to something I've been trying to figure out for a while. In a Sci-Fi setting I've been working on, one of the alien sapient species has a fiber-optic based nervous system. If they are hit by a laser, the bright light temporarily overloads them and they get stunned. This seems like an affliction, but I can't find any rules for applying an affliction as a disadvantage when exposed to a certain environmental condition.

I've had similar problems with alien species I've been adapting.

The best way I've found to deal with problems like you've described is to apply the Temporary Disadvantage limitation as an enhancement to traits such as Vulnerability or Weakness.

I've also created House Rules for a disadvantage called "Chronic Affliction" which is a generic version of Chronic Pain. I posted it on the forums a couple years ago.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...nic+affliction

Alternately, you can go with a RAW disadvantage and apply suitable Accessibility limitations to it. E.g., Blindness (Limitation: Accessibility (Only when hit by lasers), -80%) [-10]. Apply the Sense-Based limitation for Malediction to Blindness if the target can make a HT roll to avoid Blindness.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I'm trying to come up with house rules to enhance the Weakness disadvantage with things like Side Effect or other Afflictions.

In my DC Comics thread (see my Sig), I'm pretty dissatisfied with what I was able to do with Weakness.

Thinking particularly about Kryptonite--it does more than just caused damage at regular intervals to Kryptonians. It also drained their strength and nearly incapacitates them. If all Kryptonite did was 1D per minute, it wouldn't much matter to Superman. He could just beat up the bad guys and fly out of there in a matter of seconds.

So what I want is a version of Weakness that also A: Causes damage to attributes and B: Causes Incapacitation (Agony) (or possibly just Irritant: Terrible Pain).

But what would be a fair price? Should I build them as new disadvantages or as an enhancement on Weakness?

David T. Moore came up with a rather brilliant extrapolation I use pretty often. You can find it here.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

David T. Moore came up with a rather brilliant extrapolation I use pretty often. You can find it here.

Thanks! This is the best option I've seen so far.

I might try to write something up pretty soon.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Thanks! This is the best option I've seen so far.

I might try to write something up pretty soon.

It's what I use. It's very well thought out.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

It's what I use. It's very well thought out.

The first example there seems to assign a way too high value for the disadvantage. 25 points for becoming unconcious when a wooden stake through the heart causes at least 1/2 HP damage! Even 5 points might be too much for something like that...

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Thanks! This is the best option I've seen so far.

I might try to write something up pretty soon.

Is kryptonite rare or common? During some runs of the comic every other two-bit villain had some form of kryptonite. And most of his villains certainly know about it.

Lex even wore a ring with green k in it for a while, until it gave him cancer. Of course, he blamed that on Superman, also.