STR and affect physical world

[SinedOL]

I am building a poltergeist, so I would like for it to be able to manipulate things as desolidified, as it is is normal state (it as costs no end, allways on and inherent). Now is the problem : it says that I mus buy the "Affect physical world" as an advantage on his strength. What if I want to keep the 10 points base strength ? Does it cost 0 ? Or do I need to consider that I have to buy the advantage for those 10 base points, hence a cost of 20 ?  And I can extend the question if I want to buy more Strength points : do I need to buy the advantage only on the point I buy, or on the 10 base points too ?

 

I have only the Champions complete book, no other book of the heroe system, so sorry if the answer is somewhere. And I couldn't find it in this section.

[Simon]

You would need to buy Affects Physical World on all STR that you wanted the Advantage to apply to.

If the character only has the base 10 STR, you would need to purchase APW against that 10 STR (costing 20 points).  If the character purchases +10 STR (for a total of 20) and you want for the full 20 STR to affect the physical world, you would spend a total of 50 points (10 points for +10 STR, 40 points for Affects Physical World on 20 STR)

[dsatow]

I originally email this response to SinedOL back on Aug 23.  I am reprinting it here for informational sake in case others have similar issues.

 

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Its been a while since you posted to ask Steve about this rules question.  If you don't mind, I can answer the question if I understand what you are asking and I generally answer from the 6e1 and 2 books.  As a caveat, I am not Steve but I'm 99% sure I can answer your question on this subject.

 

You have a permanently desolidified character.  You want to allow the character to physically affect the real world.  How do you go about this?

 

Your base 10 points of strength is effectively free strength.  Its not that your strength drops to 0 when you become desolid.  It just can't affect the real world.  If something else is desolid with you, your 10 points of strength can be used with that desolid target.

 

If you want to use your strength against a solid object, you need to buy Affects Physical World a +2 advantage.  The advantage allows the character to use their strength and only their strength against things in the physical world.  This means that you can pick up objects and move them around like reshelving books in the Ghostbuster's movie library scene.  However, the rules explicitly state you aren't allowed to use weapons or activate attacks that aren't solely strength.  So, you wouldn't be able to pick up a sword and swing it to kill people with the strength nor activate a bomb/gun by flipping a trigger.  A GM might allow you to throw a solid object you pick up, like say a book at someone.

 

If this is fine with you, then all you are buying is the Affects Physical World on your base 10 strength.  This works out to be 20 points and your End cost for using the strength at any time is raised to 3 because per the rules you are not allowed to use the strength without the advantage.

 

However, you might want to do this a different way.  There is something called a naked advantage.  With this advantage, you pay for an advantage separately from the power and the advantage becomes the power.  You will probably need to get the GM's okay with this.  The idea would be that you use this power to affect the real world.  From picking up swords and guns, to punching people.  You become limited on the active points of the base attack.  Its a side effect of the naked advantage power.

 

There is a caveat with the naked advantage power.  If the naked advantage only affects a single power the character possesses.  Then it is treated separately and doesn't have to be used all the time with the power.  It is effectively a separate power like HKA or HA.  It works as if you paid the advantage on the power directly but is considered separate.  The downside is, it is considered a separate power and can be drained by itself. 

 

So, lets go over the ways to have your Poltergeist affect the physical world.

 

Example 1 (buying affects physical world directly on the strength of the character).  Per 6e1p192, this allows you to use your Strength in the Physical World.  It can allow you to use martial maneuvers like haymaker on your strength but not to power other powers like hand to hand killing attack.  The advantage is +2 and on your base 10 strength would cost 20 points.  If you bought it for 15 strength where you bought an additional 5 strength, it would cost 30 points.  If you bought it for 20 strength where you bought an additional 10 strength on your character, it would cost 40 points.  The total active cost of the of the power and strength would be 30, 45, and 60 respectively.  This is because even though you get the first 10 points of strength for free, it still is used to determine how powerful the power is.

 

Example 2 (buying affects physical world as a naked advantage power).  In this form, the advantage is applied to an existing power.  The existing power can be a sword or gun in the physical world or your own strength.  But I have asked Steve about this in the past and the ability is limited by the active points that is covering the naked advantage power.  The normal way to buy the naked advantage power is to assume some level of base points and then only pay for the advantage.  Thus you could say buy Naked Advantage on 30 active points.  The Naked Advantage power would then cost 60 points.  The trade off is, the active points is the maximum (including any advantages the object has) that can be affected by the Naked Advantage.  So if you have a machine pistol (1d6 Autofire RKA)and your active point for the naked power is 15, you would not be able to use the Naked Advantage on the power because its active point cost is too high.  You could use the Naked Advantage on your Strength, but it would not cover any martial maneuvers done with your strength, another limitation.

 

Example 3 (buying affects physical world as a naked advantage power but only for strength).  In this scenario, it kind of a blend of the first examples.  You are effectively buying the advantage as a power separately from the strength and thus calculate its costs separately.  Assuming you are buying this for 20 strength, the power would then cost 40 points.  When using strength against another desolid object, the end cost would be 2.  When using strength to affect the physical world, the end cost would be 2+4=6.  If an antagonist had dispel magical abilities, they could target only the naked advantage and would only have to meet the 40 active point level to disable it, unlike in Example 1 where they would have to dispel the strength.

 

Hope this helps.  Its a slightly complex character power you are attempting.  Scarily, there are more complex ones but this is pretty complex for a new player/GM.  If you have more questions, I am happy to answer or you can ask in another forum.