The rulese say that a way to remove a mod is to create an oppsoing mod. Does that mean a normal boost could remove or reduce a persistent Hinder that's been applied to the character? This came up during my intro game, and I decided it did for that game. But I'd like to confirm if I was doing it right.
Also, could a boost be used instead of multiple Overcome actions to remove an environmental hinder? Such as "Trapped Civilians -3" which would normally take 3 overcome actions?
Removing a non-persistent hinder seems easy, just do an action, let the hinder hinder you, but then it's gone. So trying to boost yourself to counter a non-persistent hinder doesn't make any sense, since the hinder would reduce the amount of boost, then be gone.
A Boost action that makes a bonus of equal or greater magnitude can remove a persistent hinder instead of making a boost. The one taking the action picks whether a bonus is made or the penalty is destroyed.
Boost actions cannot be used to remove environmental hinders, but they can certainly help with Overcome actions to get rid of them.
you can remove a persistent hinder with a non persistant bonus, you can also remove a persistant bonus with a non persistant hinder. Remember that the villains are allowed to do this too and that any "change" is lost. You use a plus 4 bonus to get rid of a -1 persistant hinder and its all gone
While this is true when focusing on a single hero, it is sometimes very useful to have hero A take a Boost action to remove a non-persistent penalty hero B is has to allow hero B to take an action without that penalty.
It can also be useful for a hero to take a Hinder action to remove a non-persistent bonus a villain has.
In both cases, though, you might not want to if you think you have a good chance to create a bigger mod (bonus or penalty) with your action (Boost or Hiinder) than the opposite mod they already have. ;-)
I can think of only a few cases where it's worthwhile to cancel out a non-persistent mod, since otherwise the opposing mod will just balance it out. Those cases are ones where someone has an ability that works (or works better) only while a bonus or penalty exists. Of course, you also have to know that such an ability is in play and how it works!
Since many players will have access to the books and can read the villain creation rules and could know what builds are in the game do you MindWanderer or anyone else think that it would be gaming the system or fair use to try guessing when a villain has one of those abilities? If you are fighting “Curse Master, wielder of the Hex Rod” would it just be logical to try and remove any and all penalties he made or should the players wait to see that he provably gets stronger when he makes others weaker.
That's a good question. I'd be fine with it. There are only 14 villain archetypes. Guessing when one might be an Inhibitor is a metagame thing, but deciding whether to Boost to remove a penalty is also a metagame thing. And it would certainly be reasonable for the GM to hint at what is causing the villain's status die to go up or down--otherwise, why even bother basing their status dice on different things?
That's what i figured, but i have flashbacks of old school DMs who thought lv1 D&D characters knowing to set a night watch or search for traps was "Meta-Gaming" because rookie adventurers would not have the experience to do something like that.
I also remember a Champions GM that said that i blinded myself with my Flash attack because i did not tell him that i closed my own eyes before i used it.- Really it's my own power but since this is the first game you think my character dose not know how his own powers work and has never used them before?!
The game appears to be far more open, information wise, than any other RPG I have seen. The GM is encouraged to role in front of the players and tell them what is happening. Place index cards on the table with the challenges to overcome for the scene (and write more as they appear) feels like you are giving players full information to what they need to do.
It just feels very open because of that. I have only run 1 game so far, and have been reserving commenting on anything until after I run it, but when I did the 1 villain in the scene I told them how their status die worked. Now, 2 of the characters backstory would get them more information on this particular villain, but in the future I think I would go that route too.
So I wouldn't have a problem telling them how the status die works. I didn't tell them all the villains abilities, they learned that during the fight.