VPP: Allocatiing Points and Skill Roll Requirements

[BhelliomRahl]

Good day.

 

Got an interesting one here for you.

 

Got a player in my game who has created several VPP. As I advised he has written up all the powers he intended to use in them. However he has bought the Pool with enough points to have every power active at the same time, so the VPP costs more than if he bought them without the pool. I have advised him of this but in insists on using the pools.

He says the reason for this is that he can use all the powers at once but does not need to keep them on but can allocate points to them from the pool as a Zero-Phase Action and does not require a power skill roll as he is not reallocating points within the pool but using free floating ones.

 

What do you think of this? Should it still take a Full-Phase and require a Power Skill roll to allocate the free points in the pool or is it free as he speculates. If the power is persistant would it automatically activate on the segment the points are allocated to it or would it occur on the following phase as a Zero-Phase action when the player activates it?

 

Thank you.

[Steve Long]

Re: VPP: Allocatiing Points and Skill Roll Requirements

 

If the Pool points in a VPP are "free floating" -- in other words, not specifically allocated to something -- then when a character wants to allocate them, he has to follow the rules for doing so (i.e., take a Full Phase and succeed with a Skill Roll, unless the VPP has Advantages to change that). It doesn't make any difference whether he's using pre-generated power write-ups or not; allocating points is done according to specific rules. Once those points are allocated, he can then in later Phases use the allocated powers freely according to the standard rules (e.g., most will require a Zero Phase Action to activate, and so on).

 

If a character with a Power Framework allocates reserve/Pool points to a Persistent Power, unless some Limitation on the power indicates otherwise it’s immediately “activated” when the reserve/points are allocated to it. The character doesn’t have to take a separate Zero Phase Action to activate the Persistent Power.