I got an email from a GM running DC Heroes 3rd Edition.
A player activates Invisibility every single phase. Wins initiative. Attacks first. Turns it back on. Repeats. The villains never get a real shot at him. Every fight becomes the same thing.
Phase one. Invisible. Punch.
Phase two. Invisible. Punch.
Phase three. Invisible. Punch.
Combat ends. Villains look stupid. That is not how the power is meant to feel. So I went back to the core book. Page 47. Invisibility makes you impossible to detect with one sense. Usually sight. It does not make you untouchable. It does not make you immune to logic. It does not make you invisible to sound, rain, dust, or common sense. And that is where the ruling matters.
If a player is activating Invisibility as a free reset button every phase with zero consequence, something is off. Either you treat activation as an action, or you apply multi-action penalties. Those are both clean mechanical answers. If you activate the power on your phase, that is your action. You can move, but you are not punching in the same breath.
If you insist on activating and attacking in the same phase, apply the multi-action penalties. That keeps it inside the system. No drama. No arguments. But here is the better answer.
Villains get smarter.
The first time, sure. They get wrecked. They go to jail confused. The second time, maybe they think it was luck. By the third or fourth encounter, word spreads. There is an invisible guy. He shows up. He hits hard. He disappears.
Now the thugs bring flour. Powder. Paint. Something cheap and logical. They throw it in the air. They watch for footprints. They listen for breathing. They fill the hallway with gunfire. They toss grenades into empty space. That is not cheating.
That is adapting.
Big villains go further. Infrared goggles. Thermal optics. Special perception powers. They prepare. That is what big villains do. Environment matters too. Rain reveals shape. Smoke reveals outline. Dust reveals movement. Curtains shift. Puddles splash. Invisibility blocks sight. It does not erase physics. If you let the power erase common sense, it becomes broken. If you let the world respond naturally, it stays strong but not dominant. And that is the balance. This is not about punishing the player. It ,is about protecting the table.
If one player trivializes every fight, the GM stops having fun. The other players stop having moments. The campaign flattens. That is not a power problem. That is a ruling problem. The cleanest fix is usually conversation. Tell the player it is getting out of hand. Most good players understand that. I have been in that situation myself. Sometimes you do not realize how far you pushed it until the GM says something.
The goal is not to nerf. The goal is to restore tension. DC Heroes works best when powers feel comic accurate. Invisibility is scary. It is tactical. It is not infinite initiative dominance. If you are running DC Heroes and something feels too strong, do not panic. Go back to the text. Apply the mechanics as written. Let the world react logically. And remember this.
A power only breaks the game when you stop letting the game push back.
If you have ruled this differently at your table, I want to hear it. Head over to Gotham-Database.com or email me. I love hearing how other GMs handle edge cases like this.
OUT!
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