Living Focus

[Snarf]

How would you build a power that a character gains from an animal or living creature? For instance, a character who gains flight by being carried around by a bird or one of those magic girls that gets magic powers from a talking animal.

 

Focus is only for objects, so I've done it by creating followers with usable by others powers so far.

[Gary Ciaramella]

The flying bird would simply be a follower... it is no different in its way then a horse would be.

 

As far as the magic girl goes, it depends... does the cat grant her the powers, or does the girl have the powers and can only use them when the cat is near. If it is the former, then you are doing it correct. If it is the later, then you can make the cat BOTH a follower and a focus. It would be a follower for the reason that any animal sidekick would be a follower, and a focus because like a weapon or a magical pendant or what have you, taking the cat away will deprive you of your power.

 

I do not think that it was said or implied anywhere in the main book that a focus cannot be a living creature.

[Snarf]

That sounds good to me, but when you're using the living focus method, what level of focus would you use and how would you treat breakability? For a small animal like a cat, I'm thinking OAF Fragile and the powers are unaffected until the animal dies, then they're lost.

 

Also, does it bother anyone that buying a follower with usable by other powers gives the player powers at 1/5 cost? It seems like a really cheap way to buy powers for a minor tradeoff in convenience.

[Eclipse]

I don't think OAF is appropriate. An OAF should be taken away with a succesful disarm. Unless the character actually has to hold the cat for it to work, it wouldn't make sense that the power ceases to function just because someone "disarmed" the animal from the character. Maybe just a generic limitation "must be within 10 (or so) feet of familiar" for a small limitation would be more appropriate.

[Snarf]

I thought accesible might work because you can easily target the animal and "disarm" by knocking it out or killing it. But I see your point, a limited power limitation could be less awkward than stretching focus so much.

[Eclipse]

It just seemed to me that if you call your kitty a Fragile OAF, you will spend aa LOT of time at the pet store/adoption center getting new kittys. Poor kitty

[Snarf]

Yeah, that power would not be for the faint of heart.

 

Inobvious would be much more playable, if you wanted the realistically helpless kitty.

[Pattern Ghost]

Well, in most magical girl anime, the animal acts as an advisor and grants access to items the girl uses.

 

Fer instance, in Sailor Moon, the cats spin around in the air, shoot objects out their butts that the senshi use, and tell them how to use their special attacks. The cats are followers, some of the powers are Foci. In Card Captor Sakura, the little guardian animal acts strictly as an advisor, with some supernatural senses. In Magic Knight Rayearth, the girls have a (goofy-looking) animal companion that one of them can communicate with, and which their magical advisor (little sorcerer dude) uses as a conduit. The critter is probably a follower of the sorcerer and has mindlink. Hmm, those are actually all of the magical girls I can think of that have animal companions, unless Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service counts, in which case she's just got an ordinary talking cat that doesn't seem to grant any powers.

 

Speaking of Magical Girl Anime, this campaign setting has a unique take on it.

 

http://www.blackbird.nu/arpg/mw/index.html

[Pattern Ghost]

Yeah, I know that was a bit of a tangent. But at six a.m., all ya get is incoherant babbling about Magical Girls...

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Snarf

That sounds good to me, but when you're using the living focus method, what level of focus would you use and how would you treat breakability? For a small animal like a cat, I'm thinking OAF Fragile and the powers are unaffected until the animal dies, then they're lost.

 

Also, does it bother anyone that buying a follower with usable by other powers gives the player powers at 1/5 cost? It seems like a really cheap way to buy powers for a minor tradeoff in convenience.

 

If the follower is brought simply to grant the power, then you're right, it's unfair, and should be bought differently. Anytime you have unlimited access (setting aside charges and such) to a power, you have to buy it.

 

However, followers often aren't available or perform a limited (or just different) role. Also, they have free will. When Magneto grabbed the vehicle holding the follower who normally drives it, he was smart enough to just follow orders and let Magneto get away, not play hero (that's the PCs' job).

[Gary Ciaramella]

Originally posted by Eclipse

It just seemed to me that if you call your kitty a Fragile OAF, you will spend aa LOT of time at the pet store/adoption center getting new kittys. Poor kitty

 

MERRROWWWW! *splat*

"NO! FLUFFYYYYYYY!!!"

[Jhamin]

We may be overthinking this.

 

A foci has all sorts of advantages and disadvantages that get hard to handle correctly.

 

I would just buy a bunch of powers "Only within 10 feet of Magic Kitty, -1/2". This has the same effect, models the power you want, and is not actually a focus and avoids that entire can of worms.

[Snarf]

Originally posted by Jhamin

We may be overthinking this.

 

A foci has all sorts of advantages and disadvantages that get hard to handle correctly.

 

I would just buy a bunch of powers "Only within 10 feet of Magic Kitty, -1/2". This has the same effect, models the power you want, and is not actually a focus and avoids that entire can of worms.

Sounds reasonable, but where do you get the -1/2 number from? Also I was planning to require physical contact to grant the power, for the specific animal I was going to make, so how much do you think that would be worth?

 

"NO! FLUFFYYYYYYY!!!"

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME FLUFFY, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEEEEEEE

[Jhamin]

Originally posted by Snarf

Sounds reasonable, but where do you get the -1/2 number from? Also I was planning to require physical contact to grant the power, for the specific animal I was going to make, so how much do you think that would be worth?

 

I got the -1/2 value by looking at alot of the other limits in the book and making a judgement call as to how often the 10' limit would come up.

 

 

My general rule of thumb is:

-1/4 limits are there, but do not limit the character often. Once every few games at most.

 

-1/2 limits come up every 2-3 games, which is how often this would come up IMHO.

 

-1 limits come up almost every game, every two at most.

 

-2 limits constantly come up. Every time the character tries to use the power they have to overcome the limit.

 

 

Do you have to touch the animal the entire time? If so you have to deal with having to keep the animal alive during a superfight while holding it. This is a pretty big deal and I would give it a -1. If it only has to touch you to start your powers, that isn't too awful, and might at most have a -3/4, but I would probably still give it a -1/2.

Also note that if nobody can tell that your powers come from the animal, then enemies will not try to seperate you two intentionally and the limit would come up less frequently. This would reduce the value in my games by about -1/4.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Originally posted by Snarf

Also, does it bother anyone that buying a follower with usable by other powers gives the player powers at 1/5 cost? It seems like a really cheap way to buy powers for a minor tradeoff in convenience.

Actually, by the time you factor in things like Usable By Other, it's not nearly a cost of 1/5 -- it's more. Add in useful things like At Range and/or No Line Of Sight Necessary and it gets to be even less of a bargain.

 

Still and all, it CAN be abusive because the Powers will be cheaper, but it's probably easier, more cost-effective, and SAFER for the character to buy the Powers themselves with a few smaller (less troublesome) limitations.

[CrosshairCollie]

I generally make people buy 'living' foci as Followers. While it may seem cheap to have a Power Battery following you around, it does have some significant drawbacks ...

 

1. Once people realize that you get your powers from the Follower, they're going to be real keen on messing with him, even moreso than they can be with Foci. And Foci can't be Mind Controlled or affected by Transforms or Mental Illusions ("Well, I THOUGHT I was lending Captain Outrageous my Dragon Catastrophe attack ..." "It's okay, Timmy, I'm sure Doctor Burnination appreciated it ...")

 

2. Followers are their own characters, even if the GM lets the player control them in general. Eventually, there's going to be a conflict between the Follower and the Hero; a difference of ideologies, or even a simple 'who do we save first' situation. At which point, Mr. Hero is bereft of his powers ... and possibly even having them used against him.

 

3. A broken Focus can be replaced; even a lost Unbreakable Focus is usually replaceable in fairly short order. However, a broken Follower is usually *dead*, and unless someone has Healing: Resurrection, that means that your power source is gone-gone-gone, probably not for good, but it's gonna be REAL hard to replace.

[Snarf]

All that still sounds like it's worth more like a -2 than a 1/5 cost to me, but thanks for all the good ideas to work with. Have the characters made that way ever seemed overpowered to you?

 

I'll stick with the usable by others method for now, since it seems like that's the way the existing rules best support, but if I start running into problems, I'll switch to a the "requires specific animal nearby" limited power.

[Space Cadet]

I don't know if this fits into the "living focus" category, but what

about the Skrill ( ? ) from Earth: Final Conflict?

 

Space Cadet

[Snarf]

Those were insectish things that clamp on a wrist and shoot energy blasts right? Yeah, those would be a better example of living focus than what I was trying to make.

 

If I remember those things correctly, they didn't move around or anything. Things that are more device-like and less character-like, like biotech gadgets, could justifiably be made using something other than follower.