TI Column shift question

I feel as though I have to be misunderstanding the TI "column shift" method rule, and am somehow getting it wrong.

If, let's say, Doomsday (at his most powerful stats, Dam at Shift-Z) were to hit, say the Hulk, the column shift (Mon TI, -9 CS) would lead to Exc (20) damage. Is that right? Doomsday hitting Hulk would only cause 20 points of damage?

One would think that his Regeneration, however one mechanically used Reg in house rules or whatever, would kick in and take care of most of this quick. That means over the course of an ordinary battle, an character like the Hulk would take almost no (or very minimal) damage, even if Doomsday were the one dishing it out. Is that right, or am I misunderstanding this "column shift" method of dealing with TI?

At this point, Hulk hasn't even begun to Adrenalin Surge, at which point his TI could conceivably prevent him from taking any damage at all. Is this right?

That's the correct interpretation on TI and what causes so many to flame over it. They feel the shifts of reducing damage like a Shift-Z attack so much is unbalancing. Unfortunately they miss just how much it reflects certain kinds of damage-ignoring characters and few creatures should have very high ranks in TI in any case. The Hulk btw really doesn't have TI, not as written in the Ultimate Powers Book. If you recheck the flames over TI those at Classic Marvel doing many of the write-ups use the house-rule version which is really just Body Resistance with a different name, so they aren't giving the Hulk CS damage reduction, they're giving him Rank Number damage reduction.

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Man, that is unbalancing, in game terms. Any degree of TI has a big potential to negate damage with the column shift rule, even lower levels. I can't help agreeing that TI, at least as it's used as we've discussed, should be so rare that it is almost never encountered in game terms. Having a high-ranked TI rating practically prevents you from taking any damage at all, and when coupled with Regeneration, (depending on which game mechanic you use), could make a character essentially immune from any damage at all, practically speaking.

Body Resistance, or body armor, or whatever, makes more sense in game and comic terms.

I'm not sure who would be able to get a TI power, now that I think of it.

Don't let the game mechanics completely derail you on the benefits of the power. In most situations it allows for representing someone who can still take damage at lower levels yet survive heavy hammering attacks. You can't represent someone who'd take a heavy attack without heavy protection to survive it and yet have him take damage from low-level attacks at the same time. With TI though you can do that. Someone with Good TI for example will still take damage from an Excellent rank attack (high-powered rifle for example), but have good odds of surviving an Unearthly rank attack as well.

Also there are other ways to handle someone who can't be harmed by physical or energy attacks, if not Juggernaut wouldn't get stopped all the time. You don't enjoy any protection from magical or energy attacks with TI, meaning someone tossing mystic bolts or psionic mind blasts still nails the guy. It's not always about having to hurt your opponent to be essential to stop them (Spider-man defeated Juggernaut once by tossing him into the foundaton concrete of a new structure that required months to dig out of). You could have CL1000 TI but if you only have Typical Strength Mr. Fantastic could catch you just by wrapping you up in his elastic body. He took no harm but he was still defeated.

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I need to start a thread called "I hate the Ultimate Powers Book". Nightmask does have a point about taking damage anywhere on the chart spectrum, yet somehow surviving the most lethal attacks.

That said, i hate this power with every fiber of my being. I honestly don't see any reason to use the UPB in any case where a version of that power is already adressed in the Advanced Players book. And in cases where it's not in the APB, I usually like powers that i wind up making a model for over the UPB which is such an imperfect fit with the advanced system.

Well there's nothing that says you have to use a power exactly as written in any of the books; while those are presented as default interpretations many are left fairly open-ended (like we've seen from the recent discussions on Body Coating and Shapeshifting in the UPB ). It's just appropriate to accept that those are how they're officially presented to use as a foundation everyone can hopefully agree on like they do with all the other rules in the game. They also don't hurt to give ideas for other powers that aren't listed or that someone might not have thought about if they only had the players book to work off of.

That being said it's nice to have someone see the positive value for representing certain kinds of super-powered individuals. Some things you just can't depict with straightforward rank number protection.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2008 03:04PM by Nightmask.

I'd like to share this....

Remember that those powers in the Ultimate Powers Book are generally rolled randomly. Not that you can't choose them, but the system is designed for random creation. The reason I mention that is because you have to factor what the odds are of rolling a power like True Invulnerability. Then what the odds are of having a decent amount of back up power or abilities to support it. Then factor what the odds are of rolling a decent rank for it.

When I look at it that way it makes me think that if a player rolls True Invulnerability for himself, I'm letting him keep it. Even if he gets lucky and rolls a Monstrous rank for it, I'm letting him keep it, because it is the will of the die, so to speak. Even if he has Monstrous True Invulnerability, what are the odds that he'll roll that well with his other powers and abilities. There are so many tables to roll on in that book. There have been plenty of times that I've had a character that felt like it was going to be the next Thor, and then with the next fumbled roll, he becomes something different all together. Others here have had to have had the experience too.

Anyway, just wanted to share that element. I'm in agreement that it is a very strong power, and I might restrict it in my game if players were choosing their powers. But there are so many powers in that book that are just as, or more powerful then that. Try Judging a character with Monstrous Reality Alteration. Ouch!!!

The Last Duskblade
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Yet the UPB states that Reality Manipulation is simply a high powered illusion. The comics don't back that up.

Agree with that. Anytime a character manipulates reality (or time for that matter), the story of how it works seems to change with this wind. My point is just that many powers can be unbalancing. Probably the whole book (the UPB I mean) is really. But it is fun to roll characters in it non the less. When I first bought it I really liked the idea of using it to upgrade older characters that I had created in the Advanced Players Book. It mentions that right before the Power tables.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2008 07:19PM by The Last Duskblade.

If anything other than building things was a flaw in the Marvel System Mechanics, was Random Character Creation. I didn't really think that anyone actually enjoyed the retardedly random crap you would roll up (Coloration, resistance to sonics, and levitation) which robbed anyone of the ability to play a character they made up in their heads. I always have been much more an advocate of points based methods, which allows players to customize abilities.

But I digress. To the topic of True Invulnerability and the 'sliding-scale' interpretation as I like to call it, it does allow for a character to just 'Never Say Die' against all comers and it'll be a hell of a fight, be it an army of Ninjas, or Thanos the Mad Titan. However, i feel it's very number crunchy, and the text of the power is a bit too limiting to the Judge to maybe interpret a certain form of damage to go beyond the scope of protection, as does psi/mystical attacks. But the letter of the power says that pretty much anything is soakable damage. I prefer just dealing with it as body armor, and I as the judge can fiat types of damage the armor protects against.

capocastillo,

The Marvel system does allot for creating characters randomly and modeled. But in the Ultimate Powers Book, the optional powers help a little with what your talking about. I threw up in my mouth a little with the three powers you chose as an example. LoL. But there is always the optional powers for each of those that you could get.

I'm sort of coming around on the Quirk system used here on this site too. Sometimes playing a random character is fun (to me) just because it requires so much creativity to make crazy combinations work. In game play and with the character bio. The point system thing I hated until my most recent game where I really saw its value.

The Last Duskblade
Q-Class Forever!!!

Oh, one more thing.

Someone on here was mentioning that you cannot shift down ranks above Unearthly, or something like that. Anyone know where I can find that rule. That would really make the True Invulnerability less desired. But also more playable.

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I was looking at Apocalypse, and he would seem to have TI at the Typical rank (-3CS), although it's called "Damage Reduction." He's a good example of a character who ought to have it; look at what a hard time he's given some of the heavy hitters of the X-men over the years, even though his TI is pretty modest by those standards.

It's clear that many descriptions of characters mistake TI with Body Resistance/Armor.

I can see TI would be useful, but probably limited to the lower power ranks. Too high and it can still unbalance campaigns, imho, at least in slugfest fights.

In most cases you can't downshift the CL1000+ ranks into the Shift ranks and lower.

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I don't think I've seen anything in the UPB that refers to Reality Manipulation as being just an illusion. Now some of the write-ups for characters with it have in fact done so but they're in error (most notably with regards to The Shaper of Worlds and other Cosmic Cube beings). Reality Alteration/Present is the only one close to being treated as an illusion only because it creates a relatively short-lived pocket dimension but even then what happens to you inside that dimension is quite real and you can end up in that other world permanently if you leave the boundaries of the pocket dimension.

Much of the time what you see presented as Reality Manipulation isn't even one of the types listed in the UPB and is even more powerful, as someone reshapes matter or flies or gives someone powers or negates them at will. None of it however is an illusion, it's all quite real, there are simply some cases where the changes aren't permanent and reality 'snaps-back' at some point in the future (4.3 years in the case of the Shaper and even he's been shown working permanent changes in a few cases, like when he undid the damage caused by Earth's Cosmic Cube when it first started going self-aware).

I think the instances when it's been presented as an illusion were simply errors caused by too much haste to publish something and a lack of accurate information in order to do a proper write-up (like Presenting the Beyonder with CL1000 stats instead of CL5000 in its physical form because they didn't update it for Advanced Rules when it was originally written in the Basic rules). The same goes with the write-ups on the Molecule Man being abysmally low compared to what he's been presented as doing. So no there isn't anything illusionary about Reality Manipulation in any of its forms.

"A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it."

-- Peter David

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Sure thing, but where is that written. Or is that a "House Rule" as well?

The Last Duskblade
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I'd have to browse through the books but that's definitely in the main books and not a house rule. Things in the CL1000+ range are generally considered cosmic-class and just too powerful to downshift except in rare cases (one of the reason for certain disagreements like my questioning Black Bolt's power being CL1000 level or could Superman survive it even though the rank number is only double that of the default rank number for Shift Z). It generates a fair amount of debate/disagreement/argument as to whether or not this or that power possessed by this or that being can be downshifted or survived, and whether or not it really qualifies for cosmic status and a CL1000+ rank.

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As far as shifting CS + or -, the rule that the Class 1000,3000,5000, and B ranks aren't shiftable from she Shift ranges is in the Advanced Players Book. I think the section that specifically addresses column shifts... Now that I think about it, that rule might be in the Advanced Judge's book.

As fas as TI not affecting ranks above UN, I've never heard of that before.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2008 01:59PM by capocastillo.

Interesting. Maybe I misread it then. I thought someone here in one of that many True Invulnerability wars said that it could only down shift from Unearthly, or maybe it was Shift-Z, I can't remember. But that seemed strange to me because if that were the case then you would have no reason to have your rank higher then Incredible or Amazing rank.

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