RQ: Immunity to an enemy's attack power and Game Balance

[Quistar]

I'm running some solo adventures for a friend. His main PC is the Star-Spangled Kid III (Theo Knight), who is the son of Starman Jack Knight, grandson of Starman Ted Knight (both from H&V Vol. 2). The game is set about 15 years into the pre-Flashpoint DCU's future so he's "now" a teenager in Opal City. Unfortunately, as he discovered tonight, so is the Mist III, niece of the Nash Mist (also from H&V 2), son of Kyle and his girlfriend, who was the sister of the new Spyder. Oh, and (for those In The Know) she is a Ludlow.

In tonight's session, the new Mist (basically identical statwise to Nash) used her Weaken power to quickly subdue Maggie (daughter of the Shade, mortal enemy of all Ludlows), Theo's potential love interest (and secondary PC) and use her as bait for a trap. The weaken power is Cloud Area Broad Progressive Simultaneous Weaken 6 (36 PP), Affects: Ability Scores, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 16; Cloud Area: 15 feet radius sphere, Broad: Strength, Stamina, Agility and Dexterity, Progressive, Simultaneous.

Pretty nasty if you don't have good Fortitude ranks! It took 2 rounds for his gf (with Fort 3) to go down and out, and that was with some Hero Point rerolls. Theo had to work at it to rescue Maggie from a deathtrap.

Here's the Rules Question part of the post. The player of Theo is a thinker and planner, and he tries to come up with scientific preparation for specific problems. In this case, he wants to do chemical analysis of the victim's bloodwork and prior studies of the Mist (while in captivity) to come up with a "booster shot" to immunize against this effect.

This is basically an Immunity 1 (Mist's Weaken Cloud) effect that costs 1 PP.

The player is fine with making Technology or Expertise (Science) rolls to come up with the formula. The DC is 11 for both Design and Construction checks, which means he can do Routine Checks in the lab, spend 4 hours mixing liquids, and he's got his formula. If he needs an expert, he has Contacts with the JSA that can do this for him easily. Either way, then it costs each PC just 1 PP to be immune to the Mist's main attack power.

This is an obvious game balance issue since it makes the villain far less of a threat to the heroes. And it raises the obvious question: Why don't most heroes take the time and effort to become immune to their villains' abilities? If this was the case, Batman and his crew would happily spend 1 PP each to be immune to Joker Venom, Scarecrow Fear Gas, etc.

By that same token, of course, villains could find ways to become immune to their nemeses' attack powers as well, assuming they are specific enough and have the means to do so (or know someone who can do it for them), for the cost of 1 PP each.

While the Rules As Written allow for this to be done, it kind of blows the balance of the game out the window for arch-enemies on both sides, and costs next to nothing to buy. I'm not sure how to handle this so I'd like input from other GMs and the M&M designers. Thanks!

- Andrew <:-(}

[Murkglow]

This is an obvious game balance issue since it makes the villain far less of a threat to the heroes. And it raises the obvious question: Why don't most heroes take the time and effort to become immune to their villains' abilities? If this was the case, Batman and his crew would happily spend 1 PP each to be immune to Joker Venom, Scarecrow Fear Gas, etc.

By that same token, of course, villains could find ways to become immune to their nemeses' attack powers as well, assuming they are specific enough and have the means to do so (or know someone who can do it for them), for the cost of 1 PP each.

Generally speaking they either can't become Immune (due to lack of time/skills/knowledge/resources or due to the attack simply not being something one can become immune to) or their method of being "Immune" is temporary/external (Batman putting on a Gas Mask to protect himself from knock out gas or injecting himself with a drug to temporarily counter the Scarecrow's Fear Gas). Comic book science can't always just do whatever it is you want it to do after all and while the good guys might be experts in many fields, generally the villain with the power you're countering is better in his specialty (Batman eventually counter's the Scarecrow's Fear Gas with a permanent injection? Crane just brews up a new batch that isn't blocked by Batman's protection, which is the in-game counter to the problem you mention later).

While the Rules As Written allow for this to be done, it kind of blows the balance of the game out the window for arch-enemies on both sides, and costs next to nothing to buy. I'm not sure how to handle this so I'd like input from other GMs and the M&M designers. Thanks!

Permanently making yourself Immune to your enemy's attack isn't generally possible without spending permanent Power Points on the Immunity (and having a character type which can explain why this immunity came about). Not only does this force them to wait until you award some PP but it's also fairly useless since the enemy can then just spend their 1 point (assuming the player and enemy both grow evenly, though of course villains are not restricted by PL or PP like players are) on an Alternate Effect which isn't stopped by that immunity (back to the part where Scarecrow just brews up a new batch of Fear Gas which Batman isn't Immune to). There is also the problem of them facing other villains as well and some heroes have a huge rogue's gallery. It basically just amounts to a huge waste of time/points and isn't especially faithful to the superhero genre because as you pointed out Heroes generally don't get permanent immunity to their arch-nemesis's powers.

[Quistar]

That's more or less how I was leaning, just wanted some input on it. Thx!

-Andrew <:=(}

[FuzzyBoots]

If you want a less rules-heavy situation, you can always start adding Complications as the side effects become more evident, c.f. Lex Luthor developing cancer after years of kryptonite exposure.

[Shadowchaser]

Back in my Champions days, we called this kind of thing "Spot Defense" (as I recall). The idea was that for a few points, you could make yourself immune to a specific enemys' specific attack. Now, it's entirely possible you might want this in your game, but by and large it isn't very much fun. Plus, you have heroes spending experience on something so specific, it's kind of boring. As mentioned, the Scarecrow can simply change his formula between episodes, and the heroes suddenly have a wasted power point that won't do them any good.

I have no problem with an inventor using his skills and advantages to come up with a solution like this on a temporary basis. Batman comes up with immunities to toxins and special gadgets used by villains all the time. It's one of the best ways to USE the inventor Advantage, in my opinion. I even allow my players to "Recall" a previous use of Inventor with a simple Hero Point (Running back to the Batcave to grab another dose of anti-venom, since I never just make *one* dose).

But rather than buying a permanent spot immunity, I think it's more fun for players to spend those PP on more useful things. If a player really wants to show his character is developing some kind of "Anti-Fear" ability, he should buy the "Fearless" advantage, which would show that he has overcome the power of fear. He'd want to explain why this is a good thing for his character, and how he developed this trait.

[Earth-Two_Kenn]

By the way, it should be: Cloud Area Broad Progressive Simultaneous Weaken 6 (36 PP), Affects: Ability Scores, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 16; Cloud Area: 15 feet radius sphere, Broad: Strength, Stamina, Agility and Dexterity, Progressive, Simultaneous.

For Damage its 15+ranks. For other things its 10+ranks. A DC 21 Weaken would be Weaken 11 (66 PP, with all of the same modifiers.)

I wasn't there, but there's a fair chance that if this same "oops" manifested in play may be part of the reason your player wants to immunize his character vs this effect.

[Quistar]

By the way, it should be: Cloud Area Broad Progressive Simultaneous Weaken 6 (36 PP), Affects: Ability Scores, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 16; Cloud Area: 15 feet radius sphere, Broad: Strength, Stamina, Agility and Dexterity, Progressive, Simultaneous.

For Damage its 15+ranks. For other things its 10+ranks. A DC 21 Weaken would be Weaken 11 (66 PP, with all of the same modifiers.)

I wasn't there, but there's a fair chance that if this same "oops" manifested in play may be part of the reason your player wants to immunize his character vs this effect.

Ah, I thought I'd fixed this to read 16, I'll do that now. I have a single house rule I use where all DCs to resist effects are 15 + rank, rather than just damage effects. After running several games where the PCs easily resisted non-damaging effects, I decided it was necessary in order to make non-damaging attack effects a proper challenge.

As for the PC in question, Fort is her weak stat at +3 so this was no surprise. Admittedly, the Weaken would have been less effective had I used the standard rank + 10 DC, but for plot purposes it worked fine. The player bought 2-3 more ranks of Fort with earned XP after the session to balance it out.

- Andrew <:-(}

[ZamuelNow]

Considering the poison is both a cloud and progressive, one interesting idea for allowing permanent immunity would be to allow it at half strength (Flaw: Limited to Half Effect). It would allow a strategic setup of the villain purposely trying to delay the fight while the player needs to act swiftly.

[Hellstormer1]

I think I remember mentioned somewhere that characters can't normally redestribute their pp unless the GM allows under certain conditions. You could let the pc go ahead and spend the point, then when it becomes apparent that the enemy is changing their attack up, the of could simply be given the option of spending the point elsewhere, or adding it back to their unspent points. You could call it a houserule based on case-by-case situations.

Also, you could "strongly suggest" to the pc that, if they don't want to wind up in that situation in the first place, they could spend more points (when they have them) for a more broad Immunity against similar attacks. This brings up the balance issue again, yes, but remember that the villain doesn't need to affect this pc directly. Their powers could be used on everyone else to get to the pc in a bigger plot, or something like that.

[Earth-Two_Kenn]

Assuming SSK3 has a cosmic rod that's at least reasonably close in function to his grand-daddy's, there are ways to use a cosmic rod to immunize against this attack.

Or, go down to army surplus and buy a gasmask.

[Quistar]

Assuming SSK3 has a cosmic rod that's at least reasonably close in function to his grand-daddy's, there are ways to use a cosmic rod to immunize against this attack.

Or, go down to army surplus and buy a gasmask.

He uses "cosmic discs" instead of a rod (harder to disarm) but yeah. All he had to do was zap her inside a cosmic energy solid sphere to solve the problem. Except that he had to go save Maggie. Btw, for fans of the series, she's the future daughter of the Shade and Hope O'Dare, and Hope is the Police Commissioner of Opal City. Her ambush of Maggie was away from SSK so he couldn't do anything about it, and she took her by surprise. Obviously that won't be as easy twice, but the Mist could strike anywhere, anytime...which is why the player wanted the immunity in the first place.

And he did give her a gas mask and a rebreather after rescuing her. Too bad the Weaken power doesn't have the Limit: Must be inhaled, or they'd be of use to the heroes!

- Andrew <:-(}