I already posted this question in the "Hero Rules DIscussion" forum, but thought I'd run it by here to get an "official" opinion on this particular wrinkle in the rules...
I was experimenting with a "super-mage" NPC for my campaign. The character has a 60 pt. Variable Power Pool, and I was thinking about supplementing her raw abilities with a few talismans and other magic items. Then I got to reading the "Continuing Charges" section of the rules -- specifically, how once you've activated a Charge for a power in a VPP or Multipower, you could then shift your points around and the power's Charge would continue to run its course. And it occurred to me that you could build powers with a single, LONG-lasting Charge (a +2 Advantage will get you a charge with a life of 1 Century, or a single "Fuel" Charge good for up to 25 years of continuous use), activate the charge, and the magic dingus you made would effectively continue working for the life of the character, while said character then shifted the points to do whatever else he wanted. Granted, with a 60 pt. Pool and a +2 Advantage on the power, the base power would only be worth 20 pts or less. But by the letter of the rules, these powered Foci you created would be more-or-less permanent, and there's no upper limit to how many magic items you could grind out and use. PLUS, you could give the stuff away and they would continue working almost like an Independent Focus, but without losing any character points or tying up points in your VPP. In the other forum someone mentioned that there had to be a "reasonably common" way of shutting off the power, and that it could be dispelled; but these limitations seem pretty much expected for magic items anyway, and "willing the power on or off" seems to be a common enough way to switch it off (and with the Fuel Charge, the focus should still hang around for when you want to will it back on again).
Would this be a fair and legal use of the Continuing Charges modifier? And if not, where should the line be drawn for long-lasting Charge powers? A day, an hour, a minute? What sort of ground rules would you set for such a character so as to limit the obvious potential for abuse? My knee-jerk reaction would be to limit the number of "activated charge" magic items the character would have in possession at one time, sort of like the "Delayed Effect" Advantage -- "you can only have INT/5 magic items on your person at one time" or something like that. Either that, or say you could have a number of items whose Real Point total values do not exceed the number of points in the VPP's reserve.
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I already posted this question in the "Hero Rules DIscussion" forum, but thought I'd run it by here to get an "official" opinion on this particular wrinkle in the rules...
I was experimenting with a "super-mage" NPC for my campaign. The character has a 60 pt. Variable Power Pool, and I was thinking about supplementing her raw abilities with a few talismans and other magic items. Then I got to reading the "Continuing Charges" section of the rules -- specifically, how once you've activated a Charge for a power in a VPP or Multipower, you could then shift your points around and the power's Charge would continue to run its course. And it occurred to me that you could build powers with a single, LONG-lasting Charge (a +2 Advantage will get you a charge with a life of 1 Century, or a single "Fuel" Charge good for up to 25 years of continuous use), activate the charge, and the magic dingus you made would effectively continue working for the life of the character, while said character then shifted the points to do whatever else he wanted. Granted, with a 60 pt. Pool and a +2 Advantage on the power, the base power would only be worth 20 pts or less. But by the letter of the rules, these powered Foci you created would be more-or-less permanent, and there's no upper limit to how many magic items you could grind out and use. PLUS, you could give the stuff away and they would continue working almost like an Independent Focus, but without losing any character points or tying up points in your VPP. In the other forum someone mentioned that there had to be a "reasonably common" way of shutting off the power, and that it could be dispelled; but these limitations seem pretty much expected for magic items anyway, and "willing the power on or off" seems to be a common enough way to switch it off (and with the Fuel Charge, the focus should still hang around for when you want to will it back on again).
Would this be a fair and legal use of the Continuing Charges modifier? And if not, where should the line be drawn for long-lasting Charge powers? A day, an hour, a minute? What sort of ground rules would you set for such a character so as to limit the obvious potential for abuse? My knee-jerk reaction would be to limit the number of "activated charge" magic items the character would have in possession at one time, sort of like the "Delayed Effect" Advantage -- "you can only have INT/5 magic items on your person at one time" or something like that. Either that, or say you could have a number of items whose Real Point total values do not exceed the number of points in the VPP's reserve.
Your thoughts?
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