Hi folx! Here are some thoughts about Powers that begin with F-K that have occurred to me over the years, along with my brief thoughts on them. I’m posting them here to stimulate discussion, but not to limit or restrict it. These aren’t necessarily all the issues about these Powers that could be considered, nor the only thoughts about them. Feel free to post anything here that you think is relevant and reasonably constructive; you don’t have to limit yourself to what I’ve posted.
Regardless of whatever opinion I post on an idea, I’m always willing to be convinced otherwise if you think you can do it.The fact that I’m posting an opinion doesn’t necessarily mean my mind’s made up on an issue; it just indicates my current thinking on the subject.
Periodically I may post other questions and thoughts that occur to me.
Q: Should FTL Travel be eliminated in favor of MegaScaled Flight?
Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think so. Admittedly you can build FTL travel capabilities with MegaScaled Flight, but it’s difficult for most people to come up with the exact conversion that way. FTL travel is very common in Science Fiction, and I think providing a simple, easy-to-use way to calculate how fast you can travel relative to the speed of light is worth a column of space in the book.
Q: Should Find Weakness be eliminated as a Power?
Steve’s Thoughts: I think this idea is worth considering. Find Weakness is often a conceptual nightmare, and to a large extent it’s a Power built wholly around a rules-based effect (halve the defense) rather than any typical “special effect.” Since the naked Advantage rules are now sufficiently well-defined for a character to easily build a naked Armor Piercing Advantage for a group of attacks, removing Find Weakness would remove all the questions that it creates (like “Can I halve someone’s defense when I try to run over them with a car? When I plant a land mine and they step on it hours later?”). Of course, if Find Weakness is removed, Lack Of Weakness would be as well.
Q: Should Gliding be eliminated in favor of making it a Limited form of Flight?
Steve’s Thoughts: I think this is a good idea. The rules for Gliding are short and simple enough that it can easily be reconfigured as Limited Flight — which is basically what it is.
Q: Should Growth and Shrinking be done differently?
Steve’s Thoughts: These two Powers are perpetual troublemakers who seem to get a re-do with every edition.
One thought that has occurred to me is that it might be better to replace the existing Powers with a formalization of the Size Templates currently found in the book. Right now both Powers tend to give you *some* of what you expect from those abilities (especially Growth), but not everything you might want. If we set them out as Templates from which you can pick and choose, that would make customization easier. However, this approach tends to be a bit more complex, esp. if we have to offer both “regular” and “Costs Endurance” versions.
On the other hand, perhaps customizability as a default will be counterintuitive, making it harder for newcomers to the system to build Growing and Shrinking characters. Perhaps there isn’t a problem here that’s severe enough to merit a change.
Q: Should the “STR adds damage” feature be removed from HKA?
Steve’s Thoughts: The answer to this may play into the whole issue of streamlining the Adding Damage rules (see the Combat post). However, I think the idea is worth considering. I can see the “gaming logic” that instituted this rule in the first place, but it doesn’t entirely make sense. Just being stronger doesn’t necessarily mean you can make a knife or axe or whatever do more damage than it’s capable of doing. Additionally, it’s not necessarily consistent — there are lots of attacks with the “I hit them really hard, or in a particular way” special effect, such as eye gouges (Sight Group Flash, No Range), and they don’t get any bonus from STR.
However, if this change is made, it almost certainly means that HKA and RKA should be combined into one Power (see below), and that RKA in effect becomes more expensive. If we just have a “KA” Power, then RKA has to be KA + Ranged (+1/2) or HKA has to be KA + No Range (-1/2). If HKA keeps its “STR adds damage” feature, then a KA Power could be “HTH you get +STR, Ranged you get Range,” both costing 15 points per 1d6 (3 DCs).
Q: Should HKA and RKA be combined into one power?
Steve’s Thoughts: This idea has some merit, I think. The text for the two is virtually identical in many respects. Assuming HKA keeps its “STR adds damage” feature (see above), then a single “KA” Power would simply mean for 15 points a character does 1d6 Killing Damage, and when he buys the Power he has to choose HTH (gets +STR) or Ranged (gets Range). Or perhaps, as outlined above, we choose one and do the other with Power Modifiers.
This makes Killing Attack more consistent with other Powers. The rules don’t, for example, have Drain, Ranged and Drain, HTH — they have Drain, and you buy Ranged as an Advantage if you want it. Nor do they feature Energy Blast, Ranged and Energy Blast, HTH — you buy EB as-is, and apply No Range (-1/2) if desired.
Q: Should the STUN Multiplier for Killing Attacks be changed?
Steve’s Thoughts: I don’t think the current STUN Multiplier rules are a problem — or if they are, they’re a problem for the opposite reason most people seem to think. But since they seem to be unpopular, a change might be worth considering. In that case, I think switching to a ˝d6+1 STUN Multiplier would be better.
Originally Posted by Steve Long
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