Question About SPD and EGO Based Powers

[Xavier]

I had a player ask me if it was possible for him to buy up his SPD such that the increase only affected his EGO based powers. For instance when using mental abilities is speed would be 6, but when using a gun it would be 3. I know it's possible, but I wonder if would potentially screw up game balance. Other issues came up when questions like "Well, what if I decided to do a non-ego based attack on phase 4, but on switched to mental attacks on phase 8?" Suddenly he would get a lot more actions. I said I would consider it. I was wondering how you all would handle this?

[Killer Shrike]

I had a player ask me if it was possible for him to buy up his SPD such that the increase only affected his EGO based powers. For instance when using mental abilities is speed would be 6, but when using a gun it would be 3. I know it's possible, but I wonder if would potentially screw up game balance. Other issues came up when questions like "Well, what if I decided to do a non-ego based attack on phase 4, but on switched to mental attacks on phase 8?" Suddenly he would get a lot more actions. I said I would consider it. I was wondering how you all would handle this?Menton has this power. CKC, towards the beginning under Master Villains.

[Lord Liaden]

KS is right; several published characters have done this, by taking a Limitation on SPD, "Only for Mental/EGO Based/etc. Powers." Menton's Lim for this is -1/2. A couple of things to keep in mind with this:

If the character's Action Phases would appear on different Segments based on his nonlimited and his limited SPD, for simplicity's sake it's probably easier to treat the character's SPD as the higher total, and select which Phases he can act physically on.

Perhaps more importantly, consider how much of the character's ability, especially combat, is derived from his EGO-based powers. If it's most of them the Limitation should be less than -1/2 IMO, if it's even warranted at all. OTOH if only a small portion of his power is based on EGO the Lim could be even higher.

[Dust Raven]

I ran into this problem with a mentallist of my own, with the same SPDs.

He was run as SPD 6, but could only perform non-mental actions on 4, 8, and 12. The only problem when when I aborted to dodge on 5. I was required to lose my Phase on 8, even though I was entitled to a mental action on 6. I lost both, because the abort was a physic action.

[Xavier]

Okay, I can see this is readily doable. I was concerned this would cause game balance issues, but apparently this isn't an problem since no one as even remotely mentioned balance difficulties. So okay then, I'll give it a try.

Lord Liaden, thanks for the specifics regarding limitations those will likely prove most useful. :p

[Hugh Neilson]

Okay, I can see this is readily doable. I was concerned this would cause game balance issues, but apparently this isn't an problem since no one as even remotely mentioned balance difficulties. So okay then, I'll give it a try.

I think the game balance issue isn't limited speed, it's how high you let Speed get to begin with.

Dust Raven provides a good example a 6 Speed, half of whose phases can be used only for mental powers. I'd allow a 6 speed, so I don;t see a balance problem allowing a limnitation that half the phases are restricted in their usage.

If he said "6 speed, +6 only for mental powers", now we have a game balance problem. But we'd have the same problem if he didn't limit the Speed.

[Xavier]

This will work out nicely then. So far in my campaign everyone has SPD somewhere in the range of 3 to 4, and the psionic (the guy who wants to do this) has a SPD of 3. Coolness. Thanks.