Rare Triggers

[Sean Waters]

I was looking at another thread about END reserves: one of the advantages of END reserves is that you have some END when you wake from unconsciousness (well MORE available END - you'll have SOME anyway).

I was thinking an alternative way to build that would be:

AID END TRIGGER (waking from unconsciousness) 0 END:

Aid 3d6+1 (standard effect: 10 points), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (35 Active Points)

That costs 35 points (in 6e). OK, not an efficient solution - but it got me thinking...

The 'trigger' advantage is used here to allow the power to go off when you wake from unconsciousness so you instantly get some END to play with (about 25 END). Thing is 'waking from unconsciousness' is something you hope will be a pretty rare event in combat - and things that do not happen often are usually modelled with a limitation. I thought of putting a limitation on the power - probably somewhere between -1 and -2, but it felt somehow wrong when the trigger already limited it that way.

However, if you changed the trigger condition to 'whenever you have lost 25 or more END from your normal total' it would be FAR more useful - but cost the same.

So - what do people think about putting a limitation on powers that are triggered by rare events?

[Lucius]

I don't have a s.nap-judgment on it, but I think you have an excellent point

LA
p

[Naanomi]

I agree that the value should vary on those grounds... my 'on my death' triggered explosion won't happen very often! For very very rare triggers, No Conscious Control might be a better fit...

[casualplayer]

Can I partially limit my REC to Only when STUN, BODY or END are at less than starting values? It just sits there otherwise when I'm healthy and fully rested.

If this was taking the piss of Trigger I wholeheartedly approve because it is a power modifier just reeking of cheese. Limiting your powers to Only When You Need Them has never seemed like much of a limitation to me.

[Blue Jogger]

So - what do people think about putting a limitation on powers that are triggered by rare events?

Around where I come from, we call that Charges.

[bigbywolfe]

Around where I come from, we call that Charges.
Can you elaborate on how Charges would fill that role?

[Matt Holck]

charges cost no end

I just woke up I have 3 endurance
*takes out gun and fires 3 shots into foe*

or
Aid endurance
x1 charge -2 limitation
as in the power can only be used once until recharged
thus is usually only used in special cases


I'm not sure what blue means

[bigbywolfe]

Thanks, but I know what Charges are. I was asking how this: "Around where I come from, we call that Charges" applies to this: "So - what do people think about putting a limitation on powers that are triggered by rare events?"

[Matt Holck]

put the trigger event on a charge
if one doesn't expect it to be happening often, he/she should only need one charge of it
if the player wants two charges of it that's -1.5 limitation

It's up to the player the figure out how rare the incident is

[Sean Waters]

The potential problem with 'charges' is that whilst an event may be rare over an extended period, it might happen only, say, five times in a month where there are 100 opportunities for it to occur - so reasonably rare in game terms - those five events might cluster on the same day, making 'charges' less useful: random does not often mean 'evenly distributed' :)

[bigbywolfe]

In fact, if you are knocked out once in a fight, unless you have a huge recovery rate, chances are you may get knocked out again before the fight is done (depending on game style and how brutal the brawl is of course). Heck, you may only get KOed 4 or 5 times in an entire campaign but all in only a couple of sessions.

[Blue Jogger]

Ok, let me clarify. One way to think of rare events is Charges.

Let's see if I understand Sean correctly. It's a rare event that can happen 128 times in a month and say up to 16 times per combat (a bit overkill, but bear with me). So 8 clips of 16 charges that take to a minute to reload, that's a -1. Granted, if you are knocked unconscious 17 times before having a chance to reload, you're SOL.

Let me repeat: 16 charges -0, 8 clips (+3/4), Increased Reloading Time: 1 minute (-3/4), Increase Recovery Time: 1 Month (-1)

Using a combination of Increased Recovery Time, Clips, and Increase Reloading Time, you should be able to model fairly rare events, allow for huge clusters and STILL get some limitation value out it. -1 might not be unreasonable in that case.

[Matt Holck]

Generally reloading a non-clipped power took a day
That be the base time scale I use so an increased recovery time of a month would be two slots down on giving a -1/2 limitation
the increased reloading time limitation is broken and redundant

[Blue Jogger]

Generally reloading a non-clipped power took a day
That be the base time scale I use so an increased recovery time of a month would be two slots down on giving a -1/2 limitation
the increased reloading time limitation is broken and redundant

If we go without clips and only Increased Recovery Time, 125 charges for a month OR 32 charges a week is still a -1/4 limitation. Not much of a limitation granted, but perhaps not nearly as broken.

Unless we can say being knocked unconscious is something that happens "only" 8 times in one week or 32 times a month, that's a -1 limitation.

In any case, that's how one can use Charges to model a rare event. So I'd say that it's somewhere between a -1/4 limitation and a -1 limitation, depending on how often you expect that rare event to occur.

[Fearghus]

So - what do people think about putting a limitation on powers that are triggered by rare events?

I might as a game master make the Trigger a cheaper advantage or something for rare triggers.

This situation reminds me of a character that a friend of mine played. The power was basically regeneration but it only took effect after the character actually died. Otherwise he just healed normally. What this allowed the player to do was be a reckless as he wanted and even if he died oh well. no skin off his nose. But the number of times the character actually died in the game was surprisingly low.

[Sean Waters]

I might as a game master make the Trigger a cheaper advantage or something for rare triggers.

This situation reminds me of a character that a friend of mine played. The power was basically regeneration but it only took effect after the character actually died. Otherwise he just healed normally. What this allowed the player to do was be a reckless as he wanted and even if he died oh well. no skin off his nose. But the number of times the character actually died in the game was surprisingly low.

This is precisely the sort of think I was aiming the post at - he'll be paying more for regeneration that having it on all the time BUT only actually gets to use it occasionally (now we might do it differently - Regeneration+Resurrection (only to resurrect) - so there would be a clear case for using a limitation).

[Bodkins Odds]

I would use the Regeneration, Only to Resurrect, but that's just me.