Necessary Item to control your power

[Opale]

Aloha !

 

Here is a tricky question (for me) that I was asked by one of my players.

 

Imagine your character have a tremendous power that he can control only by the use of an item (harness, armor, bracers, and so on).

 

How would you create such an item ? I guess it's a focus with certain properties (Adders and limiters), but how to define it ?

If when you loose this item you loose control (sometimes/easily/totally) of your powers and then trigger with massive destructive effects - more powerful than when you fully control it. I thought of a No Conscious Control but how to apply it when the character loose the item. And how to link the fact the power unleashed becomes very destructive ?

 

To get the idea, a character like BlackBolt from the Inhuman in Marvel Universe. Without his harness and head fork, he's going to blast his entire realm.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

NCC Opale and.. what ?

[Lucius]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

I can see several ways.

 

Generic Superpowerful Ability: Custom Power (50 Active Points); OAP-F (Control Item (Pseudo-Focus); -1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Side Effect always occurs whenever the character does some specific act (Lose Control Item), Side Effect only affects the environment near the character; -1) Real Cost:17

 

I use the Focus Limitation because how easy the item is to take away should govern how big a Limitation it is, but losing a real Focus means you can't use your Power but losing this item means you can't STOP using it, so I call it a pseudo-Focus. I valued the Side Effect as "Extreme."

 

 

Or we can use either of these Complications

 

 

Accidental Change: Control Item taken Always (Uncommon) (-20)

 

This might be useful especially if you want to write up an "uncontrolled" version of the character.

 

 

Enraged: Berserk Control Item Taken (Uncommon), go 14-, recover 8- (-35)

 

In this case, berserk is not a state of mind, it represents a state of being out of control of what the character is doing with their Powers.

 

 

 

I'm sure other people will have other ideas.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I'm sure they won't have a palindromedary

[esampson]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

The way I use to handle it was to apply some sort of limitation to the power (always on, side effect, limited power, etc.) to represent the lack of control. I also calculated how much the power would cost without the limitation. I then paid the additional points sort of like a Naked Advantage and applied the focus limitation to those points.

 

It isn't exactly RAW but it seems to function as RAI and the results typically seemed fairly well balanced (the end effect was the power saved about 1/3 of the points that it would have normally saved taking the limitation)

[CptPatriot]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

What I'd do is buy the power as it is when the power is out of control, then determine the difference in real points between the out of control version and the controlled version. Take that number and apply the focus limitation to it.

[Opale]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

Thanks to all

 

I'm wondering if such a limiter should be proposed to Steve Long as a "classical" btw.

 

Not so classical Opale.

[Lucius]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

Another possibility is to use Variable Limitation.

 

EITHER a Focus OR Always ON

 

EITHER a Focus OR Side Effects

 

Or even

 

EITHER a Focus + Costs END OR Concentration + Activation Roll OR Activation Roll + Side Effects

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Variable Palindromedary

[OSAT]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

Always controled its a listed varaint on always On, it isn't as value intense (less points off) as full always on but seems to provide the flavor your looking for. I'm currently running a char with a "Death Field" (1/2d6 body drain persistant, zero end, area, always controled) it pisses her off that she has to wear somthing that looks kidna like a 4 point seat belt with a composit box with little blinky lights on it or everything around her starts droping.

[psyber624]

Re: Necessary Item to control your power

 

Another option that I used way back when (ie 3rd ed champions or the like, cant remember exactly which) was to buy the power at full strength as normal, with the always on limitation, then buy another power, as a focus, that served to Suppress that power. As long as the cost of the focus was greater than the cost benefit of the always on power, this system seemed to work well for me (ie you cant buy the focus for dirt cheap to basically "grant" you the points you get from buying it always on.) Also, if the Suppress wasnt bought with Always On itself, then you could effectively control the power while you have the focus, but without the focus you cant (works great for things like Cyclop's eyebeam). Just watch the cost of the focus to ensure that the character isnt just getting "free points" by buying always on but having a way to circumvent it... (in this situation i might rule that Always On was a -0 limitation, for instance. The player can build his character like this if he wants for flavor, but not to get the cost of the power down.)